


Saving Draco

by BethNottingham



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And I really do mean that, Angst, But they both enjoy a little passive-aggressive gambling, Dolores Umbridge is Her Own Warning, Draco and Harry may hate each other, Draco and the twins make friends and NO ONE IS SAFE, Enemy of my enemy at least has a sense of humor, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Like not a whole genre's worth but strong whumpy influences, No but really, Personal Transformation, Poor Draco, Umbridge is a scary bitch, Whump, dramione - Freeform, he needs a hug, sooooo much angst, ye be warned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 46,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22106566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethNottingham/pseuds/BethNottingham
Summary: On her deathbed, Draco's godmother bestows upon him a final gift, of sorts. However, for someone as self-centered as Draco, supernatural empathy is more a curse than a gift.Eventual Dramione. Cross-posted to fanfiction up to chapter 18
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56





	1. Godmother

Lucius Malfoy was not a man who liked taking "no" for an answer. He was a wealthy, influential pureblood wizard with friends in high places and a cut-throat reputation that frightened nearly everyone he met, and he was comfortably used to getting his way.

It was odd, looking back, to think that it was his own greed and ambition that started it all…

-0-

It wasn't like he wanted anything particularly difficult from the reclusive Draega Black. He simply felt that, as his wife's aunt, the eccentric old lady ought to floo into London once in a blue moon, get a little involved with the family, perhaps endorse his particular branch of it, help out the Dark Lord in his effort to elevate purebloods such as herself—simple enough, for her, or so Lucius thought, anyway. However, at eighty-two years old, the witch had absolutely no desire to leave her New Zealand estate, and even less desire to have anything to do with the Malfoy family, or Lord Voldemort.

And so, in true Slytherin fashion, Lucius decided to go at the problem from another angle.

"We would be so honored if you would agree…" Narcissa had a way with inflections, Lucius marveled—not for the first time—as he listened in on her fire-call to her aunt. It probably helped that she was six months pregnant, sitting in a rocking chair, and presiding over several pairs of magical knitting needles as they looped pastel green yarn into baby socks and receiving blankets. The perfect picture of maternal health, the wizard thought approvingly. In front of the pregnant witch, the Malfoys' tall fireplace blazed with white flames, showing a slightly flickering image of Draega Black herself, seated comfortably in an overstuffed armchair in her living-room at Dragenwold manor.

"If it's a girl, she'll be Draega, and if it's a boy, he'll be Draco," Narcissa continued conversationally.

"I'm rather too old to be anybody's god-anything," Draega grumbled, but Lucius could hear her caving.

"Nonsense," Narcissa chuckled. "You're the picture of health. Besides, father always spoke so highly of you. I want my child to have close ties to both sides of the family. Diversity is such an asset, don't you think?"

It took a three hour conversation about child-rearing and middle-name-choosing and post-natal care before Draega was willing to at least think about Narcissa's proposal, but Lucius knew that she was leaning towards saying yes. No one could refuse his wife anything, if she wanted it badly enough to put her mind towards getting it.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked him after the sixth pinch of floo powder had burned out and they'd disconnected the call.

"Of course," Lucius responded with a raised eyebrow. "All ulterior motives aside, think of the advantage this will bring to our child." And to the Dark Lord, he added privately. If he could get Draega to come out of seclusion, his master would reward him beyond his wildest dreams…

"It just feels like we're… bartering her away before she's even born," Narcissa murmured, stroking her stomach gently.

" _He_ will be the better off for it," Lucius assured her, and she glared up at him playfully.

" _She_ had better not curse us for naming her Draega," The witch observed, selecting some pale gold yarn and weaving it onto a free pair of needles.

" _He_ will _love_ the name Draco," Lucius shot back.

Although Draega Black did not attend Draco Malfoy's birth, preferring to remain comfortably in her home and receive an announcement, she did, at last agree to be his godmother.

"It's slow going," Lucius explained respectfully to the Dark Lord, "but you, My Lord, did say that she didn't respond well to a direct approach." Draega Black was, apparently, so paranoid that someone—such as the up-and-coming Lord Voldemort—would try to get her to join the outside world that she'd put up a fortress's worth of protective enchantments on Dragenwold, and almost never left. Voldemort would've had to spend days and an immense amount of power breaking them just to get in to talk to her.

"You have done well, Malfoy," the Dark Lord murmured, and pride filled Lucius's veins like alcohol as he left the room.

Draega Black, for her part, was no fool. She knew when she was being manipulated, and there was a part of her—the part that had gotten her sorted into Slytherin house almost three-quarters of a century ago—that missed this sort of mind-game. A much larger part of her—the part that had developed as she matured and realized that she never wanted to be confined by all this traditional pureblood codswallop—simply wanted what Narcissa had unwittingly offered her. A chance to pass on her beliefs and values to a new generation. Since she'd never had children of her own (being unable to settle down long enough, when she was younger) she'd never had the chance to shape a young mind and watch it grow. She coveted that chance.

Anyhow, she knew she could beat anything Lucius Malfoy threw her way—she had decades of experience on him when it came to pulling other people's strings.

-0-

It was a little less than two years later that revels in the streets and shooting stars in broad daylight heralded the completely unexpected fall of the Dark Lord. The most devoted—and most foolhardy—of the Death Eaters were sent to Azkaban. The cleverer and more connected followers feigned awakening from trances, or else simply sold out their comrades for their own freedom. Narcissa's people skills withstood the greatest test of her life when she and her husband stood trial, and she unabashedly blamed every wrong they'd ever been caught committing on her fanatical, already-imprisoned-for-life sister and her abilities with Unforgivable Curses. The Malfoys returned home that night, free and clear, but without any clear direction about what to do next.

The years passed by in a hazy blur of lying, bribing, and watching Draco grow. When he was five years old, Narcissa brought him to visit his godmother in person for the first time. He stayed for a week, came home, complained that it was boring and he hated it there, and begged not to be made to go the next year. However, as his mother firmly explained to him, purebloods did not whine, and they respected their elders. So, a few months later, he went back to New Zealand for a two-week stretch. Then, that summer, he spent a month with his great aunt.

By his seventh birthday, he wasn't complaining about it anymore. In fact, he'd come full circle and started demanding to spend the whole summer with "Aunt Dee" every year, an idea that Lucius would have opposed—if Narcissa hadn't preempted and agreed to it before he got home. She knew that her aunt was an odd bird, and that she and her husband were doing everything in their power to raise Draco right. But she liked what she saw in her son when he came home from his visits. Somehow he seemed more vibrant—more alive. When she asked her aunt what the secret was, Draega would get a little gleam in her eyes, and give a different answer every time, saying anything from "baking cookies" to "battling dragons," always with the same expression, so Narcissa could never quite tell which responses were jokes and which were serious answers.

Draco was nine when his godmother's health became so frail that she was confined to a wheelchair. Lucius thought for sure the he would lose interest in visiting her, but Draco still insisted on spending the summer with her. Narcissa would fire-call on weekends as usual, and see Draco sitting on a pouf near Draega's knee, reading to her out of old storybooks, or else across from her at a low table playing an unfamiliar card game that he later identified as "blackjack," (whatever _that_ was).

The summer Draco turned eleven, Lucius insisted that he remain at the main estate, and only visit his godmother for two weeks. They wouldn't see him all year while he was at school, his father explained, and Draco complied… after throwing an epic tantrum and pretending to have the flu so he could stay at Dragenwold for an extra two days. The truth of the matter was this: it was all very well and good that Draco enjoyed his aunt's company, but Lucius was deeply concerned that if she was the last person to influence him before he formally entered wizarding society for the first time, he would most likely embarrass the family.

And right he was to be concerned, though he wouldn't know it until much later.

Draco did well in school, and conducted himself as a respectable pureblood ought to do. He visited his godmother two weeks each summer, and minded his manners when he was home. Then, as Draco's fourth year wound to a close, the unimaginable happened. To Lucius and Narcissa's equal terror and joy, the Dark Lord rose again from the edge of death. He and his fellows flocked to their master's side as he awakened in the graveyard, and their brotherhood prepared to climb again to power.

The Dark Lord explained to Lucius some of the forms of magic that he had studied while in exile, and told him briefly about the incredible power that Draega Black possessed. Personally, Lucius was unable to understand the difference between "Empathy" and Legilemency and the Imperius Curse, but if his master wanted an eccentric, reclusive, crippled and almost blind old lady with some kind of legendary power on his side, Lucius was hardly going to refuse him. Using the floo connection they'd set up for Draco, he brought his master right into the heart of Dragenwold.

"I'm ninety-seven years old, and can neither see nor walk," Draega Black had informed the Dark Lord in the same crisp, no-nonsense voice that she would have used to tell Draco that it was much too rainy to go to the swimming hole. "I'm far too old and fragile to fight in any war. Now if you would please get out of my house and leave me to my quiet retirement."

It was the wrong thing to say.

Voldemort, you see, was also accustomed to getting his own way.


	2. Dragon's Heir

Narcissa Malfoy had just settled into bed—in one of the guest bedrooms of her own mansion, no less, because she and Lucius had given up the master bedroom to the Dark Lord—when she heard an unearthly shriek from Draco's room. In a panic, she raced down the hallway and burst through her son's bedroom door.

He was sitting up in bed, drenched in sweat, panting as if he'd just sprinted across the grounds. When the door crashed open, he looked up in surprise, staring at his mother with wide, haunted eyes.

"What happened?" Narcissa demanded, already calming down a little. He was alone, he didn't seem to be bleeding or otherwise hurt.

"A dream," he said, but his voice broke and the words came out in a shattered whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again, with a little more strength. "I just had a stupid nightmare, that's all," he explained. "Sorry for waking you, mother. Go back to bed."

"What did you dream of, Little Dragon?" Narcissa asked quietly, slipping into a habit that she'd tried to break when he'd insisted he was too old for nicknames, or to talk about his dreams.

Most people wouldn't have noticed the pause, the slight guarding of his facial expression, but Narcissa was both a mother and a Slytherin. She knew he was about to lie before he even opened his mouth.

"I was being chased by a werewolf," Draco responded, finally getting his breathing under control. "He'd just gotten his jaws around my arm when I woke up."

"I see," Narcissa responded, although she didn't, really. Of all the silly things to lie about, why would Draco not want her to know about his nightmare? Perhaps it was something embarrassing, she rationalized as she padded back to the spare bedroom, wondering nervously if he'd have another so loud while the Dark Lord was trying to sleep. Secretly, she hoped he'd claim or conjure a mansion of his own soon. It was more than a little disconcerting, having him staying in their home…

-0-

Draco didn't fall back asleep that night. The image of Aunt Dee crumpling to the floor after a jet of green light struck her right in the heart was burned across the inside of his eyelids, and when he closed his eyes longer than it took him to blink, the whole scene played out in stunning, horrifying detail. As soon as a decent hour of the morning rolled around, he was going to go over for breakfast and assure himself that what he'd seen was just some product of his overtired mind and the stress of having the Dark Lord living down the hallway in his parents' bedroom.

Aunt Dee had told him quite frankly that Lord Voldemort had wanted her on his side way back in the day, and that she'd cloistered herself at Dragenwold instead. He knew that the reason his parents had made her his godmother was because the Dark Lord needed a way in with her. But that had all seemed very hypothetical, like historical trivia.

Until a few weeks ago when Voldemort himself had apparated onto the front porch.

Draco hadn't been too worried about Aunt Dee; she was ancient, and hardly stayed awake for more than a few hours at a time these days. The Dark Lord couldn't possibly want anything with her. Frankly, Draco thought she must have been greatly exaggerating whatever secret power she was supposed to have. He'd never seen her do any kind of magic that didn't look completely normal to him. Honestly, she used her wand less than most other adult wizards. She did have _amazing_ people skills—made his mum look positively awkward in comparison—and the uncanny talent to know exactly how he was feeling at any given time, and catch anyone in any lie, but that wasn't a "special power," it was just a personal quirk.

Or, so he thought.

It took him a few days to realize exactly how wrong he was.

It started small. His father wanted him to dress nicely and have breakfast with the family—and their _honored guest_. Normally, Draco couldn't spot the chinks in his father's armored expression, but it was like he could sense the underlying concern, and the warning. He would've protested—he'd planned on surprising Aunt Dee—but somehow he _just knew_ that it was a very bad idea to cross his father today.

He washed up, put on nice robes, and took his seat in the dining room. His mother's cultured calm was as impeccable as ever, but he could tell she was upset, and worried, and overtired, and annoyed… Blaming his messed-up perceptions on lack of sleep, Draco rose with everyone else to greet the Dark Lord, and then sat along with the adults, and dug—politely—into the spread the house elves had prepared. Nothing was wrong with his parents; whatever was the matter, it had to be with him. He needed a nap, and a little visit to Dragenwold. Then everything would go back to normal.

Somehow, Voldemort was more intimidating than usual that morning. It was like Draco could actually _feel_ hostility and irritation rolling off of him in giant waves. Even on the best of days, he never spoke to the Dark Lord, but this time he remained completely silent throughout the meal, not even daring to make eye-contact with anyone.

Later that afternoon, after his father and Voldemort had left to go and do whatever important things they did all day, Narcissa sat Draco down and told him that she had something important to explain to him.

"Draco, last night, your father took the Dark Lord to visit your godmother," she began, and Draco could feel the color draining from his face. There was no way. There was no way that dream could be real. Even if it was a possibility that it had happened, he didn't have any kind of power that would show him something like that… He looked into his mother's carefully composed face, and felt the wave of apprehension washing over her. She already didn't like how he was taking this. He stiffened his jaw and made an effort to breathe evenly.

"What did he want with her?" he asked. "I wouldn't think she'd be of much use to him these days…"

"He wanted her support," Narcissa responded carefully. "She refused him—rather rudely, according to your father." That didn't surprise Draco at all. Aunt Dee wasn't overly fond of authority. Perhaps that was why he'd had the dream. If he'd been half asleep when his father and the Dark Lord returned from Dragenwold, and overheard them talking, that would explain a lot. Hopefully, that was it.

"That officially makes her a blood-traitor," Narcissa continued. "We've removed her name from our family tree, and revoked her claim as your godmother. You must never speak of her again, do you understand me, Draco?" Draco nodded, although under his robes, his fist was clenched. What harm could she do? Why couldn't they leave her out of it? He could still sense the heaviness in his mother's words, the warning behind her tone. It confused him. What was the big deal?

"Since you were closest to her, you are in the most danger, my son," Narcissa explained. "We can't have anyone thinking she's influenced you too heavily." Now he was beginning to get it. His mum was worried about the Dark Lord thinking he was siding with Aunt Dee. If, indeed, Aunt Dee had a side of her own at all, when she clearly just wanted to be left well alone.

"Can I send her a letter?" He asked softly. He watched in fascination as his mother struggled with herself. There was something else, something deeper, something darker, something she was at war with herself over—should she tell him, or should she keep it to herself? "Mother?" he asked, fear twisting his stomach.

"She's dead, sweetheart," Narcissa admitted finally.

For a full ten seconds, the words stabbed into Draco's gut like a knife twisting through his insides. Then, he started noticing his mother's expression again. He watched her watching him, felt her terror that he'd react badly and earn himself the same fate…

"I understand," he said simply, shoulders tight, throat protesting. As he stood, he felt his mother's wave of relief.

By the time he'd hidden himself in his bedroom, he was equal parts grief-stricken and confused. What was happening to him today? He'd never been this perceptive before.

He thought perhaps he was just tired, but that evening, he retired early, and he slept late in the morning. The Dark Lord was gone for a few days on business—his parents didn't tell him what sort, and he didn't ask—and the family could finally breathe again.

But the next day, it was actually worse. Every time he was in the same room with his mother, it was like she was constantly speaking, or making noise, except that she was completely silent—he was somehow, inexplicably picking up on her mood. It was disconcerting. It was also stressful, but the stress _wasn't his_. _He_ wanted to be sad, wanted to lay on his bed and cry like a little child, because he was never going to spend the summer at Dragenwold again, or hear his aunt read faerie tales… But even if he could've gotten away with mourning a blood traitor, he couldn't really get the feelings to manifest; he was too preoccupied with his mother's.

After lunch, he took his school books and hid in a corner of the kitchen. Whatever was happening to him, it was easier to be around house elves than around humans. It felt so much calmer in there, listening to the monotonous sounds of cooking and dish-washing and little footsteps. A little logical voice in the back of his head whispered that the house elves were calmer and happier than his Death Eater mother. The voice reminded him of Aunt Dee. It pushed at the knife in his heart, and he tried his best to block it out and focus on his transfiguration essay.

On and on it went. He'd wake up in the morning, already tense and worried, go through his day trying to avoid all human contact, go to bed and dream of things that made no sense—disjointed jumbles of images and sounds and emotions… so many emotions. Sometimes he'd watch Aunt Dee die again. Sometimes he'd hear her crisp, waspish response to the Dark Lord's offer. The strangest feeling of pride and sorrow and resignation and unnatural calm would wash over him, and then at the last second he'd think of… but then he'd awaken, just as tired as when he'd gone to sleep, and repeat the process.

His mother noticed that he didn't look well, and knew he was having recurring nightmares, although she didn't know of what he was dreaming. He claimed it was school stress—he didn't want to bring shame on the family next year when he took his O.W.L. exams. He felt her surge of pride in him.

He waited a moment, then carried on, inventing as he went, and paying attention to the way each word affected her.

He was having a little trouble focusing at home.

He was accustomed to doing what he pleased at the manor, while he was accustomed to studying at school.

He felt that perhaps he'd have an easier time trying to concentrate if he went someplace else, someplace quiet, someplace where he didn't have memories of lounging about and wasting time…

It was so easy.

By evening, Narcissa had sent off a few letters, and booked him a room at the Silver Cobra, an expensive, high-society wizarding hotel in Switzerland, just a quick broomstick ride away from the Swiss National Wizarding Library. He was to stay most of the summer, come back home for his birthday, then go back, and return a week before the start of term. He could tell she was nearly as relieved as he was. Apparently, she didn't like the idea of him being in the same house as the Dark Lord all summer, although that was probably more about his loud nightmares and constant moodiness than anything else.

It would hardly do for Voldemort to come back and realize that the next generation of the Malfoy family was going completely mental.

But the real understanding of what was happening to him came that evening. He'd checked into the Silver Cobra, then realized he'd left his potions textbook and kit behind. He could've waited until morning, or else sent for it, since he had the whole summer to study, but there was a whole jar of complementary floo powder, and he wasn't tired yet.

"Malfoy Manor, back parlor," he called into the emerald flames. He wanted to try and sneak by without notice—he'd already done the whole kiss-mummy-goodbye routine and felt a bit awkward imagining an unexpected repeat. He stepped as quietly as possible out of the fireplace, and crept through the servants' corridors to his mother's potions laboratory. He stuffed his supplies into a satchel, and headed back through the passageway.

It was when he passed by the wall and artfully hidden entrance to the dining room that he felt it; an immense wave of caution, a desire not to be overheard. His heart pounded wildly, and he froze, not wanting to risk making a single floorboard creak.

He didn't realize that the emotion _wasn't his_ until he heard the Dark Lord's low voice.

"There is only ever one," he was saying. "Bellatrix was the closest in blood, but Draega was hardly foolish enough to leave it in the family. She would have designated a successor. Likely, she sent it abroad—she was quite adamant that it not fall into my hands. The old fool…"

"My Lord," Lucius murmured, "you are already so powerful, and an accomplished Legilemense. What need have you of this 'empathy?'"

"Empathy, Lucius, is far more than simply mentalism," the Dark Lord explained, with hunger in his voice. "It is the ultimate ability to sense and manipulate emotions, even on a massive scale. A trained empath can control thousands of people, keep track of individual minds simultaneously, and at great distances. He or she could sense inklings of dissent or disloyalty, hear a lie before it leaves the speaker's lips, enter the dreams of anyone he or she pleases. They could connect hundreds of minds, allow perfect secret meetings…" He sighed quietly, and Draco wasn't sure if he was _hearing_ the longing in the high, cold voice, or… _feeling_ it.

"An empath is capable of feats of mentalism that would break even the most accomplished Legilemense," he finished. "It would be an incredible asset. Or, conversely, it would be a formidable adversary. But now, thanks to your wife's aunt, I must start from the beginning and find them."

Draco's heart hammered even louder as his father's fear flooded him. He waited until Lucius had started speaking before whispering a silencing charm with his wand pointed at his feet, and creeping with painstaking care down the passage and out into the back parlor.

"Room 617, The Silver Cobra," he whispered as clearly as he dared, sprinkling a handful of floo powder into the fire and nearly jumping through the flames in his haste.

As soon as he landed, Draco set his bag down, shed his robes, and fell face-down on the bed. He'd specifically requested a room as far away from other guests as possible, and he was beginning to understand why. Aunt Dee had indeed kept the power in the family—the moment before she'd died, she'd given it to _him_. He was the successor.

After mulling it over for a little while, he reasoned with himself that he knew what he _ought_ to do—go straight back home, tell the Dark Lord that he had the coveted power, and swear allegiance to him immediately. Bring honor and glory to his family, have the greatest Legilemense of all time teach him to control whatever was happening inside his brain, make his father proud…

But...

Aunt Dee hadn't wanted Lord Voldemort to have Empathy on his side, for whatever reason. She'd bowed out the first time, and given her life rather than join the second time. And although he knew it didn't do anyone any good, he was angry—now that he was alone and could feel his own emotions clearly. Angry at the Dark Lord, and at his father, because Aunt Dee was someone important to him, and now she was… now she was…

Finally, finally, the tears he'd wanted to shed for days started pouring from his eyes, and ragged sobs shook his thin frame.


	3. Heart's Resonance

Draco awoke the next morning feeling groggy and emotionally spent, but at least he'd slept through the night, and cried as much as he could, with no one to hear and judge him. A house elf turned up with breakfast, summoned by a little silver bell Draco found on the night-table, and the young wizard ate and drank slowly, thinking very seriously about his next move.

He couldn't go home and turn his power over to the Dark Lord just yet. He was too new at it, to start with. He wouldn't want to boast and then seem incompetent. He also needed time to deal with his godmother's death. It wouldn't do to enter the company of a powerful Legilemense while thinking about how angry he was about the death of someone that Legilemense had murdered. Besides, he really wasn't ready to be in close proximity to people any time soon. He was three floors away from his closest neighbor here, and he liked it that way.

So, Draco began a new routine. He got up, had breakfast while reading the day's _Prophet_ and the hotel's complimentary copy of _Zukunftspapier_ , the local newspaper, which he translated with a few waves of his wand. Most of the news was boring and mundane, although there was an amusing increase in Harry Potter jokes, which Draco appreciated. Afterwards, he'd wash up, gather his things, and fly to the library. It wasn't exactly a popular tourist destination for the summer, so he could easily find a nook on a window seat or in an upstairs study room where the closest emotions were at least twenty meters away. He could still feel them, unfortunately, but it was more bearable.

He'd study his Hogwarts things for an hour or two, then browse the stacks, researching mentalism, with little success. Empathy—the power, not the virtue—was classified as a myth, right up there with heliopaths, wrackspurts and the Deathly Hallows. The best he got was a book on meditation, and several sources on occlumency, which helped about as much as a light headache potion would fix a migraine. It was something, though, and he muscled through some basic exercises just to feel proactive.

He'd force himself to eat lunch in public, either in one of the local cafes or out on the benches in front of the library, when the weather was particularly nice. He'd try out the meditation and mind-blocking techniques in the books and, when those inevitably failed, he'd carefully focus in on one person at a time, reading their emotional state, picking the ones who seemed healthiest and happiest and keeping his power directed at them until they left. He found that his effective range was about thirty meters all around him, but he could easily stretch to triple or quadruple its length if he was tracking a specific person or group. To his horror, he found that his basic range was widening day by day. Although it meant whatever legendary power he possessed was getting stronger, on a practical level it also meant he had to experience that many more people's emotions all at once.

After lunch, he'd get on his broomstick, ascend high enough that the muggles wouldn't see him, and fly around for an hour or more to clear his head. The air got frighteningly thin by the time he truly felt alone, but he'd take care to breathe deeply and evenly, staying up as long as he could bear it. He practiced his quidditch moves; he'd have to drop down a bit further so he could breathe safely, but it wasn't so bad. Feeling the souls of the people in the towns below was a lot like hearing the indistinct buzz of a faraway crowd or looking at a collage of faces. He'd pick up a general mood—anything consistent among many people—but not much else, unless he focused.

When he'd exhausted himself, he'd return to the ground, eating dinner in his hotel room and reading about mentalism or, occasionally, actually doing the homework and OWL studying that he'd claimed to be working on. He'd avoided fire-calling home, not wanting to risk his mind anywhere near the Dark Lord's, opting instead to write letters full of half-truths and pleasant lies. His mother's polite responses arrived on her favorite mint-green stationary; although he couldn't read her mind at that distance, he could spot the gaps—see where her exhaustion and stress was bleeding into her apparently mundane communications. He wasn't sure if that was another empath thing, if his mother was in such a bad way that she was losing her edge, or if he just knew her so well.

Although learning how to _use_ his unwelcome gift had seemed like an impossible task at first, Draco was still a Malfoy, and a Slytherin. His only natural course of action was to come at it from another angle. The issues with having Empathy were threefold. First, mistakenly responding to someone's thoughts rather than their words would make him look at best mental, at worse like a legilimense with horrible manners. Second, no matter what he did, he couldn't turn his gift off, and it could easily become painful and overwhelming. Third, when the Dark Lord found out about it, he wanted it to be on _his_ terms.

If he couldn't solve the overall problem, then he would have to attack the smaller bits.

To deal with the first issue, he started by always making eye contact with anyone he thought was speaking with him. It was a silly little habit, but he could see if their lips were moving, and with some practice, learned to read when facial expressions were inconsistent with whatever communication he was picking up from them. After a few weeks of this, he noticed two interesting changes. First, he began to notice a difference in the way things "sounded," between thoughts and words. Words spoken aloud had imperfections; people's voices rasped or cracked or they sped up or slowed down or repeated themselves, but their thoughts occurred all at once, and presented to him in perfect order, words forming like someone was reading from a script.

Second, though, he began to notice a difference in the way people treated him. When he made eye-contact with the people he spoke to, they warmed up to him quicker, they spoke longer, and they were more likely to give him what he wanted. Strangers on the street seemed more likely to engage him in brief conversations as well. As he learned to differentiate between people's different emotions, he realized that this simple change was making people trust him more. That was interesting.

The second problem, he could pretty much only deal with through gradual exposure. That was what all the books on legilimense health said, so, grudgingly, he complied, sitting closer and closer to other people at the library, spending less and less time on his broom, and forcing himself to go out for dinner as well, in increasingly more crowded places. The discomfort remained, but he gradually developed a tolerance for it. It began to fade into the background. Eventually, he could walk through the middle of a crowd without more than a minor headache. He wasn't exactly confident; an angry or frightened crowd would probably send his head spinning and end with him seizing on the floor (he'd had a few bad nights when he first tried going out in public and walked right into a group of student protesters) but it was as good as he was going to get. He was still going to need a lot of alone time to stay sane, but he'd have the whole schoolyear at Hogwarts with plenty of nooks and crannies to hide away in.

Regarding the third problem, all he could do was avoid Voldemort until school started, and hope that he figured things out by next summer. Until then, he easily convinced his parents to come visit him for his birthday, and would naturally stay at Hogwarts this Christmas "to study." Really, the only way this plan went awry would be if he got poor marks after all this fake studying.

By the end of July, he was actually getting the hang of socializing; combining his Slytherin charisma, his new abilities, and the impressive amount he'd recently read about human thought and behavioral patterns actually made him better at dealing with others than he had been before. Might even give him an edge dealing with McGonagall and Dumbledore—as long as they didn't figure out where he got the leg up.

As far as his actual schoolwork, he fit it in between devouring every book he thought might help him get the hang of his Empathy. After a while, he found himself so in the habit of studying that his homework went by unusually fast. It wasn't necessarily fun, but it was easy, and sometimes a nice break in subject matter when he'd spent too long memorizing every telepathology fact in the Swiss National Wizarding Library.

Although he wasn't sure how much it would help, he continued his attempts to learn how to meditate. He also started keeping a journal—recording his impressions of his progress. Eventually, he began to start off his mornings by flying early, getting away from everyone as much as he could, and journaling then. That way, he knew that whatever he recorded in those pages was him and him alone—not just him feeding off of whoever was near him. When he did become overwhelmed, he'd slip a hand into his pocket, pinching the soft leather cover between his fingers, using it to ground himself.

Apparently, that was a thing a lot of telepathic types did—using a physical "anchor" to ground them in reality when their minds became too tumultuous to handle. His journal wasn't exactly the most convenient item for such a purpose, but he made do.

At least, until he got the letter.

The gist of it was that Aunt Dee had left him many of her possessions in her will. She'd divided up her stuff among some others, but no one could have anything of hers until someone could manage to get inside her estate. Dragenwold had magically sealed itself as soon as the Dark Lord left, and so far, no one could get in. Her cash money—divided among Gringotts, Pekeomakutu in New Zealand, and at least eight other financial firms—was still embargoed, but would eventually be distributed, but none of her personal effects were available.

However, enclosed with the Ministry's official communication, Draco found another letter, on simpler stationary, from none other than Arthur Weasley.

"Draco," it read. "I'm truly sorry to hear about your aunt. While I did not know her well, I did meet her once or twice, and on the last occasion, she left this pack of cards in my office. I never got around to returning them, I'm afraid. I recall she mentioned that she truly enjoyed teaching you her favorite games. I thought that perhaps you might appreciate having something of hers, even though it's hardly equal to your sizable share of her estate."

The pack of cards was old, with raggedy edges from being clumsily shuffled so many times. It was just like the ones she'd taught him on as a child. Opening it, he riffled through until he found the ace of spades. He almost burst out crying.

On every deck of cards Aunt Dee owned, she always colored in the ace of spades; the single spade symbol in the middle created a tiny, abstract coloring page. She said she learned the habit from a voodoo gambler in New Orleans. Sure enough, this deck was hers; the spade was like a tiny stained glass piece of green, blue and violet. The design itself was made to resemble a dragon, with its head at the top, looking down over its back, its wings furling out at the bottom, and its tail forming the stalk. She'd owned a dozen decks like that, and each ace was different.

This particular deck was the very first one she'd played with him; he recognized the specific colors.

Sinking backwards onto his bed, he set the deck down, knowing that he would crush it in his trembling fists in a moment if he didn't, and he couldn't have that. He couldn't be the one to destroy the only thing he had left of her. The tears he thought he'd finished shedding weeks ago returned with a vengeance, and he found himself keeling forward onto the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.

His grief was like a riptide, pulling him under with sudden, inexorable force, drowning and crushing him at the same time. While his body convulsed, his mind flailed, reaching out just like any drowning person would, seeking anything to pull himself to safety.

Then he latched onto something.

It was a child—a child so young it didn't really have a concept of gender, so he wasn't sure if it was a boy or a girl. The child was squirming around comfortably on a thick fur rug while daddy read a storybook, making faces and using silly voices. In the background, mummy was knitting something. The needles made soothing, rhythmic clickety-clack, and the springy yarn bounced around. When the child became distracted from daddy's face, it watched mummy's knitting.

The man worked a stressful job, with long hours, so today was special, because for once, he was well-rested, the baby was happy, the missus was happy, and he could just enjoy his family. The woman was spread thin, between her child, her part time job, and trying to keep up with the ridiculous amount of dirty laundry. But today, for once, she was up to date on everything she had to deal with.

It was a rare moment of family happiness, radiating out like a soft, golden aura. Draco breathed it in, gasping for it like precious oxygen. His own grief didn't lessen, exactly, but it was like his mind had to stretch to fit the gentle, ordinary bliss from the little family. It poured into him, and he soaked up every drop in desperation. He wasn't sure how long he lay there, but by the time he fully returned, the family had all gone to sleep.

Rolling onto his back, he scrubbed at his tear-soaked face. He'd been stupid to think that he could expend all of his grief in one day.

If he'd had _any_ question about the wisdom of getting near Voldemort before he got this under control, then he _certainly_ didn't now.

The next day, he took a break from all his research, all his schoolwork, and instead spent his time in the library sifting through books on transfiguration. After a lot of digging, and plenty of practice on another deck of cards he'd picked up from a shop, he finally managed to transfigure the ace of spades into a small pendant, preserving the card's texture and Aunt Dee's customized dragon, but adding a little weight, improving the durability, and shaping the whole thing in a traditional teardrop shape. He strung it on a plain black cord, and hung it around his neck.

From then on, the necklace served as his anchor.


	4. Mind's Meetings

Draco pressed the back of his head into the dusty upholstery of the Hogwarts Express's seat, eyes squeezed shut, breathing labored as he clutched his dragon ace pendant in his left palm. He'd been so stupid—so very, very stupid, thinking he could just floo directly to the transit fireplace on the platform without getting accustomed to being around people for the day. He'd gone from his relatively secluded hotel room directly into a busy throng of people; a buzzing hive of "hurry up now" and "hello, friend, it's been ages!" and "I miss my mum and dad already" and "has anyone seen my bag? I've lost it!"

Then, on extreme opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, he'd feel stabs of raw emotion from those who knew of (and believed in) the Dark Lord's return. Some bid their children farewell with excitement, knowing that their families would receive high honors in the new world order in a very few years, securing their kids' futures. Others waved goodbye wondering morbidly if this would be the last time their families were together, knowing that their names were on a hit list and their days were numbered. Both extremes sent lancing pains through Draco's head—the Death Eaters' happiness just reminded him nauseatingly of his own predicament, and he couldn't block out the other side's fear.

He'd somehow stumbled his way onto the train, grateful that his father had been too busy to see him off and his mother had agreed to visit him in Switzerland instead of dropping him at the platform "like a little kid." He'd felt badly about saying it to her, especially in her fragile state, but he would never have been able to prevent her noticing his distress.

Trekking all the way to the very back of the train exhausted his already limited energy reserves, but he made it. The very last car was an older one, with more wear and tear and less support in the seats. Few people used it, so he figured that if he holed up in one of the compartments and glared hard enough at anyone who came within sight of the door, he could at least have a flimsy wooden wall between him and the other passengers for the duration of this journey.

His friends all tended to prefer the nicer, newer cars near the middle of the train, and his glare must've worked on everyone else, because even the compartment next to him remained vacant throughout the trip. After a while—once his nearest neighbors grew bored with the train ride and started reading, eating snacks and generally loosening up—he became coherent enough to wonder if he'd projected some kind of angry aura, keeping people away. He was going to have to test that, he decided, once he got to school. That would be a useful skill to have under his belt.

Ordinarily, he'd be in a nice compartment with Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy and Blaise, talking, playing exploding snap, and eating chocolate from the trolley. He'd given up glaring away potential intruders by the time the witch turned up, and she'd sold him two cauldron cakes, a bag of licorice snaps and a packet of tooth-flossing string-mints. She'd recognized him and thought it odd that he was alone. Her concern got under his skin, like sitting down on a chair and finding it too soft and squashy to really support his back. He'd snapped at her when she was too slow in handing back his change, and her rush of irritation cleared his head. She flounced off irritably, and Draco had sprawled out on the seat in moody exhaustion. Why couldn't she just mind her own business?

He felt the approach to Hogwarts. Rather than feeling the minds of only the people on the train, he began to feel a second grouping up ahead—the professors anticipating their students' arrival, the busy excitement of the house elves as they prepared the feast, and something else; a subtle aura, almost like the castle itself was conscious of the children's imminent return.

Or perhaps that was just the combination of the professors and staff, and he was attaching too much emotion to Hogwarts itself. He couldn't really tell—it wasn't like he had a clue what he was doing.

The train slowed to a gradual halt, and the students disembarked, Draco taking much longer than necessary checking his bags and adjusting his robes in a futile attempt to postpone the moment he'd have to step into the throng and interact with people. Finally, clutching his pendant, he stood, slinging his school bag over his shoulder, and made his way out to the platform.

It was horribly loud. Not many people were actually talking, of course; some were tired from the journey, some were cranky and hungry, some were preoccupied with the Dark Lord's return. But their minds were like a swarm of bees, buzzing and milling about and crashing into one another—and capable of turning into a cloud of stinging death at the slightest provocation.

He felt when people's thoughts turned to him; it was like he would tune in momentarily to each in turn as they saw, recognized and considered him. Some were ambivalent about him. Some looked up to him as a popular kid. Many sent stabs of revulsion his way. He felt his shoulders sink and wondered how he was going to make it to the castle.

He found Crabbe and Goyle, and focused in on the simple blocks in Goyle's mind; his friend was hoping there would be meat pies tonight. He was a little concerned about his DADA grades and thought maybe he should do his homework once in a while this year. He was mentally deciding how he'd structure the betting pool he always ran for Quidditch. Each topic was considered and concluded before he went on to the next, and Draco breathed slowly and deeply and followed the taller boy to the carriages, thinking that perhaps he'd found a good coping mechanism.

That was when he noticed the thestrals. The grotesque winged steeds pawed anxiously at the ground from where they stood hitched to the carriages. He vaguely remembered looking up a drawing of one in a book, after he'd learned that they pulled the school carriages, but he'd never thought too hard about it, assuming he'd never be able to see one-at least not while he was at school. His chest hurt as he thought about Aunt Dee, realizing that this was just one of the many side-effects of her death.

"You all right?" Crabbe rumbled quietly.

"Yeah, mate, my head's just killing me," Draco muttered, swinging himself into the carriage and determinedly following Goyle's train of thought about gobstones.

'What the hell are these horse things?' he thought in confusion, before slowly realizing that he knew what a thestral was, and he was therefore picking up on someone else's confusion. Glancing up, he saw Potter and his friends off in the distance, Potter's surprise echoing louder than the hundreds of minds between them.

Of course bloody Potter would turn out to have an unnaturally loud and annoying mind, Draco thought with a rush of loathing as he said something mindless about this year's Quidditch odds, trying to get Goyle's head to go back into betting statistics as a distraction. He'd never known that arithmancy was a tallent his friend possessed, but by the time they were halfway to the castle, he'd actually gotten quite thoroughly lost in the numbers.

Predictably, the castle was aglow in start-of-term excitement as the narrow corridors of the train and the limited space in the carriages gave way to wide stone halls where every girl could embrace every other girl and cry about how much they'd missed one another, and every boy could slap every other boy's back and express much the same sentiment, though with far less outward dramatics. The reunions clogged up the corridors for a time until professor Sprout turned up to remind them all that the feast was that way and they had better get a seat, but unlike previous years, Draco didn't mind the inconvenience. The heady, nostalgic feelings surrounding him were a welcome change from the stress he'd endured at home, and the busy rush and hyper-focus of the Swiss National Wizarding Library.

Finding a seat at the Slytherin table, he dished himself up a small bowl of soup for starters, glancing up at the staff table. He wasn't as surprised as Potter to see the little pink woman perched in the seat beside professor Snape, as his father had mentioned something about her being appointed to Hogwarts, but he was quite shocked when he took an experimental dip into her head. Her emotions all felt… sticky, like day-old cotton candy or a dusty wad of spiderwebs, melting and sticking all over everything. She was excited for the start of term, in her own way, but something about it was massively off-putting, and he withdrew in a hurry.

He ought to like her, he supposed tiredly. Someone like her would cause so much trouble for the Gryffindors, and he could already tell Potter was on her hit-list. But that night, as she gave her thinly veiled power-grab speech, tired as he was, she just gave him the shivers. "It means the Ministry is interfering at Hogwarts," he heart Granger summarize through Potter's mind, but everything he was hearing seemed to echo dizzyingly, and he wrenched his focus onto Granger herself, just to get away from Potter's unnaturally loud mind.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected inside of Hermione Granger's mind; an orderly series of thoughts and facts, maybe, interspersed with 101 Ways to Look Cleverer than Everyone Around Me, and a rush of judgement towards everyone who actually knew how to use hair products. But it felt like climbing out of a cramped position and luxuriously stretching for the first time in a long time. Her mind felt… hungry; like it was constantly consuming and expanding and changing. Looking into her felt like trying to look at the whole universe at once with only his naked eyes, and it was overwhelming, but in a good way, like triple chocolate cheesecake was overwhelming but he could never get enough of it. He inhaled, his spine and jaw finally relaxing as he took her in.

Granger might have been an irritating, prissy know-it-all with the restraint of a toddler, but _her mind was breathtaking_.

'I don't think I could keep all this in either,' he realized belatedly. No wonder she was constantly narrating. If she never spoke she'd explode!

That was when she looked up and made eye contact with him.

He'd felt strong discomfort radiating off if the people who hated him, but it was nothing like this. This was pain, like a raw nerve being pulled. Years of belittling commentary, cruel jokes and gossip-mongering crashed over him like a wave, and he couldn't breathe. She saw in him the antithesis of everything she was. Whenever she hesitated, choosing not to speak for fear of ridicule and rejection; whenever she felt lost, like she did not and could not belong to the world she so perfectly understood and so powerfully loved, it was his voice that she heard in her head, sneering, gatekeeping, pushing her down.

"Draco," Pansy asked, tugging on his sleeve, "your soup's getting cold. What's the matter?" But before she could say anything else, he was stumbling up from the table and stumble-sprinting for the closest boys' toilet. He barely made it in before everything he'd eaten that day returned with a burning vengeance up his throat.

When he'd finished vomiting, he rinsed his mouth out methodically, then washed his face in cold water before glancing in the mirror at himself-the dark circles under his eyes, and unusual pallor to his skin.

'Lesson learned,' he thought shakily, 'don't spend too much time in your enemies' heads. It's an uncomfortable experience.'

He slowly shuffled his way back towards the Great Hall, but before he could open the door to exit the boys' lavatory, it swung inward, admitting none other than Ronald Weasley. The two glared at each other for a moment before each grudgingly shuffled a bit to the left so they could both use the door. As they passed by each other, Draco's wrist brushed accidentally against the back of Weasley's hand, shocking him into the red-haired boy's mind for the briefest of seconds.

He stumbled as he got into the hallway, nearly dry-heaving at the dizzying storm of sensation. Weasley's mind seemed to echo; not because it was empty although Draco would have loved to make that joke, but because of the way his thoughts overlapped, differently from anything the young Slytherin had ever experienced. Most of it was indecipherable-again, he would have loved to make a joke out of that had circumstances permitted-but whas he was able to understand was that the tall Gryffindor felt apprehension towards Umbridge akin to a crow sensing an approaching storm.

'So,' he summed up to himself as he walked more slowly than necessary back towards the feast, 'Potter's loud, Granger's brain is the bloody universe, and Weasley's got some sort of freak-level intuition that I can barely even translate. Figures those three would be set up to make my life more complicated than it needs to be this year.'

He was so caught up in his own musings that he didn't even notice his bat-like head of house staring at him down his hooked nose as he finally re-entered the Great Hall.


	5. Actions' Consequences

Realizing that you're wrong isn't a terribly comfortable feeling for anyone. Draco remembered an argument he'd gotten into with Nott when they were six years old, about whether snakes could blink. He'd sworn up and down that they could, that he'd seen them do it, mostly because he'd been telling a funny story and Nott had interrupted him just to correct him saying that a snake had blinked, and he really wanted to shut him up for butting in.

The next day, after he'd made such a big deal out of it, Nott had brought over his pet Hognose snake, and coolly shown how it didn't even have eyelids. Draco remembered feeling hot, pressure building in his head, and how he'd snapped about how snakes were stupid and dirty anyway, and why would Nott have something so gross as a pet. The other boy had chosen _not_ to point out that the crest of the Malfoy family included a snake, as well as much of their interior decorating, which Draco knew looking back meant that he'd been the more mature participant in the argument. But the discomfort around being wrong-being proved wrong, moreover-wasn't something he could ever forget.

When he'd come to Hogwarts, already prepared from years of moderately illegal homeschooling, he'd been horrified to find that there was a Gryffindor muggleborn in his year who somehow knew more about magical theory than he did. He'd spent years putting her down, trying to build himself up in what he was no longer too thick to realize was the worst possible way; here he was, of noble blood, with a magical education to rival any other, and somehow she'd made him feel inferior just by walking into the room. He'd resigned himself to a few more years of pettiness between them, second highest test scores, and a job far, far out of her league via his family connections, never to see her again after graduation.

But this year he was painfully reminded that being wrong felt so much worse when he'd made a huge deal out of being right.

Looking at him from the outside, nobody would have guessed that his entire sense of self was being violently dismantled behind his eyes. He said things, running his mouth on autopilot, laughed at his housemates' jokes without understanding a word of them, all the while wandering around his own head in a confused haze.

It seemed that no one was who they'd appeared to be. Neville Longbottom's memory was more crammed full than he'd thought a human mind could be; it just became inaccessible whenever a teacher asked him a question, because his anxiety would take over and wipe his mind blank so that he'd have room to think. Pansy Parkinson wasn't into him at all-in fact, she fancied Marietta Edgecomb in Ravenclaw; she'd just attached herself to him (as a safe, pureblood and massively disinterested male party) because she knew it would prevent her parents aggressively seeking out another match for her.

It had been disconcerting in Switzerland, looking at someone and seeing what was on their face, hearing words but being able to tell what lay beneath. But it was far, far worse when it was people he'd grown up with. That, combined with Potter's constant mental shout and Weasley's uncanny animal instincts, had Draco in a constant state of agitated headache. He couldn't properly focus on anything; he'd read a paragraph about glamour charms, and then realize he'd spent twenty minutes accidentally eavesdropping on Zabini's potions homework or Avery's drama with his mum or Pansy's taste in girls (really, now that he considered it he was surprised he hadn't noticed; she wasn't remotely subtle). And that was just the other students.

Professor Umbridge's mind left a sickly sweet residue when he so much as got near it, but she was impossible to ignore, her constant stream of consciousness was in the form of a list:

Arrive in the classroom on time

Write chapter title on the board

Announcements

Call out exactly three students for behavior issues as a warning to the group

Prepare cup no. 4 of tea for the day

And so on and so forth, backtracking every so often as she checked items off and added more at the end. It would have seemed like the ordinary workings of a highly organized mind, if she wasn't _planning_ to assert dominance over a bunch of teenagers on a regular basis.

Then of course there was professor Snape. While Draco was reasonably sure that the dark-haired legilimens couldn't get into his head-what with Empathy being so much more powerful than Legilimency-he _was_ reasonably sure that his head of house could tell that he'd erected mental barriers beyond what he'd been capable of last year. In turn, while he could read Snape's emotions just fine, the thoughts that went along with them were hidden from him. If what little he'd read was correct, he'd be able to break through if he tried; with experience he might even be able to keep Snape from noticing. But he was a long way away from that, even if he had felt the need to snoop into the potions professor's thoughts.

He soon settled into a routine similar to the one he'd developed in Switzerland. He'd wake up early, take a long walk on the grounds to clear his head, grab some breakfast before the Great Hall got busy, then shower while the rest of his housemates were eating. He'd go to classes, listening to the lectures aloud and inside the professors' minds (and his grades were skyrocketing because of it; hearing something explained was one thing, but directly experiencing the way an expert understood it, that was another) and then on nights he didn't have Quidditch, he'd get on his broom and hover over the Forbidden Forest until his head cleared.

He'd do homework on the castle roof or up a tall tree if he was still overwhelmed when it started to get late, though he did make an effort to spend time in the common room or library at least one night a week. Then he'd return to his dormitory and go to sleep-and that was where things really got complicated.

As is the case with most things, the more Draco exercised his power, the stronger it got. Near the end of his stay in Switzerland, he'd noticed a vague sort of awareness when he was supposed to be asleep; now it was developing, and he'd begun to realize what it was. As soon as he lost consciousness, his mind would wander into the dreams of those around him-initially just Crabbe's, but then slowly branching out to the rest of his dorm-mates, then housemates, then the rest of the school.

Both Potter's and Weasley's minds were headache-inducing to be around when they were dreaming, so as he began to gain control of where he ended up, he'd steer clear of the Gryffindor fifth year boys' dorm. Every time he got near either of them these days, physically or otherwise, he'd have two entirely separate but equally disturbing sensations of being watched. With Potter it felt like there was an eavesdropper hanging around every corner, and with Weasley it was like approaching a very large carnivore, and knowing that if he made too much noise it would turn round and notice he was there.

After the first few weeks, he began to feel like he was being pulled apart at the seems-like he was hundreds of different people at once, and more when he slept. He skipped all of his classes one Friday, curled up in the branches of a huge, twisted English Oak in the forest, grateful that he could doze there, where he was far enough away from other minds that he'd stay firmly in his own. At dinner time he reluctantly headed back to the castle; he might have stayed longer but the local herd of Centaurs was getting close, and their brains were as incomprehensible as Weasley's-too many layers for him to comfortably read. He neither wanted to sleep around them, nor be caught in their territory.

Professor's McGonagall and Snape both took points from Slytherin from him cutting their classes; Flitwick and Trelawney had both been understanding-well, Trelawney had spouted some nonsense about how his spirit had needed the quieting, and how his divination skills would be better on Monday because of it. Umbridge, however, had assigned him detention. If he'd had his wits about him he probably could have come up with a convincing lie and gotten out of it, but he'd still been all fuzzy from finally getting some decent sleep (in a tree, like a wild owl, but he was too exhausted to feel any shame about his coping mechanisms). He just nodded wordlessly and shoveled down his dinner like there was no tomorrow-feeling Snape's eyes on the back of his neck the whole time. The man had definitely noticed that something was up with his star pupil.

"She's a mean old bitch, isn't she?" Pansy muttered, her head resting on Draco's shoulder as she glared subtly at Umbridge through her long eyelashes. Normally Draco would have shrugged her off, but he now knew that she was doing it because Jason Dudley was leering at her across the table, and everyone knew that Jason Dudley was entirely too much of a coward to pick a fight with Draco Malfoy.

"Thought you liked her classes?" Draco commented blandly.

"Yeah, I do," Pansy responded, "I'm rubbish at fighting magic so I'm glad she's doing things in a safer way. Wasn't looking forward to accidents in that class this year. But she's too hard on us. She took fifteen points from Nott today, just because she didn't like his tone when he answered a question about stinging jinxes-thought he sounded too excited. And then she gave you detention on a Friday night just because you slept through one class?"

"Your dad's endorsing her, right?" Zabini checked. "You should complain."

"I should," Draco agreed, mentally drafting his letter already, but privately wondering if his dad would be too busy with the Dark Lord to pay attention to the happenings at Hogwarts.

Seven o'clock rolled around and Draco reluctantly headed down to Umbridge's office, ready to get this over with, and mentally rehearsing a couple of ways he could butter her up and get back into her good graces-wouldn't do to be on her naughty list all year if she was going to be an iron fist the whole time. He passed Filch in the corridor, shuddering as he felt the sadistic admiration (two things that he hadn't known could combine so sickeningly until just now) he held for the Ministry-appointed Defense professor.

To his surprise, when he arrived in the relevant corridor, he was not the only student plodding his way towards detention with the professor. Potter, fists shoved grumpily in his pockets, walked along a half step ahead of him, his feelings of displeasure at his rival's presence slowly being eclipsed by the powerful revulsion he carried for their professor. And as they reached the door and Potter knocked, Draco felt something else coming from him-a particular type of pained resignation.

Potter was certain that this was going to hurt-a lot.

Before he could process that and go rooting around in the shorter boy's mind for specifics, the professor's sickly sweet little voice invited them in, and they entered the overly-pinked office, both feeling the irrational urge to hide from the many paintings and figurines of cats that seemed to watch them from all angles.

"Mr. Potter, you know what to do," Umbridge said sweetly, before turning to Draco and gesturing for him to take a seat at one of two small writing tables-Potter had installed himself wordlessly at the other. "And Mr. Malfoy, I must admit I am greatly disappointed. I had hoped that, considering your family's involvement in the school, you would be a more conscientious and responsible student." She might have said more-her lips were still moving, and Draco would later have a vague recollection that he'd mentioned staying up all night studying and then sleeping through class-but in that moment he was suddenly aware of nothing else beyond the searing pain etching itself across the back of Potter's hand.

Without moving his own eyes, he took in the image of the quill that Umbridge was seeing as her eyes strayed to her other detainee; old pureblood families sometimes used blood quills for the signing of important contracts-treaties, marriage documents and the like-so Draco recognized the device, but no one would dream of using them to write lines! Well, no one except for this toad, he amended bitterly, adding "blatant disrespect for wizarding traditions" to the laundry list of things his father would most certainly be hearing about.

She told him to write "I must be responsible with my time," and he slid into the writing desk without saying a word-knowing that if he spoke now, although he'd certainly have quite the speech to make, he would likely be in for a lot more punishment until he could get word home.

The pain in his own hand wasn't nearly as bad as the way he experienced Potter's for some strange reason, but that wasn't much of a mercy, as he still had to feel both of them, and his pride was too great for him to show that it hurt. His only option to focus on to get away from Potter's head would be Umbridge's, and frankly he'd rather feel the cuts than have to interact too closely with her thoughts. He had no choice but to sit there and bear it, as hours passed and all three of them grew sleepy, two hands aching more with every passing minute.

It was nearly ten o'clock by the time Umbridge indicated that they could stop, and there were splatters of blood across both rolls of parchment from where the wounds had bled as they were reopened too quickly to clot. The two of them walked in silence for a couple of corridors before Potter's rising irritation (born partly from the humiliation that someone-especially someone he loathed-had witnessed what Umbridge had been doing to him for… weeks, apparently) got the better of him.

"Bet you're so proud of your dad's choice in professors, huh Malfoy?" he growled. Draco was running his thumb across the raw new skin at the back of his hand-he didn't have words permanently etched there like Potter did, but to the practiced eye the skin would probably always look a little off.

"He'll be hearing from me," he drawled, "don't you fret. She's crossed a line and she'll regret it." With that, they'd reached the junction where Potter would ascend the stairs towards Gryffindor Tower and Draco would turn left to head down to the dungeons. They parted without another word-Draco noting that Potter was torn between not wanting any help from the Malfoy family and hoping that Draco would throw a tantrum and get the situation resolved overnight.

Draco, for his part, soaked his hand in murtlap essence while using a few flicks of his wand to charm a quill into penning a letter to his father. He had none of Potter's irrational dislike for seeking help where it was needed, and while he couldn't bring up his troubles with Empathy, he most certainly could draw his parents' attention to this educational debacle.


	6. Course's Change

Draco's morning mail delivery didn't usually come with a rush of conflicting emotions, but with all the changes happening in his life at the moment, the two letters grasped limply in his hands didn't really rate much surprise.

The first was from his father. Lucius Malfoy had sympathized with his son's discomfort, but said that he'd spoken to Dolores Umbridge at the Ministry Outing over the weekend, and she'd assured him that she thought Draco was a bright young man and an excellent student, who had just needed a bit of a wakeup call regarding being responsible with his time. He assured Draco that all he needed to do now was toe the line, and he'd have nothing more to worry about from Madame Umbridge, who needed a certain measure of creative freedom in order to whip Hogwarts into desperately needed shape.

Reading between the lines, Draco surmised that his father was so busy and exhausted that he couldn't give the matter enough thought to realize how insulting her behavior was to wizarding tradition and the Malfoy family name. A new rush of irritation towards Voldemort burned through him, but he suppressed it, remembering that he'd have to go home and face the man eventually.

The other letter was an official communique from Gringotts, stating that per Draega Black's will, a large sum of gold had been placed in a vault with his name on it. The unusual part of that one wasn't the inheritance-he'd known he was meant to receive a large portion of her estate-but the fact that the vault was accessible only to him, in spite of his underage status.

He scanned the numbers, unsure of what he'd do with the gold given that he already had plenty of money from his parents. He wondered briefly why Aunt Dee would feel that he needed an independant fortune, but then realized that she'd probably expected to live until he was of age. Perhaps it was meant as an insult to his father; he knew that his mother had also received a comfortable inheritance, also in her name only, while Lucius had gotten a box full of small investment receipts, which added up to far less than either his wife's or son's portions. Investments… that was a thought, he supposed. If he put it into some businesses where it would grow, then he'd be even more wealthy by the time he graduated.

Assuming he survived the next few years of Dolores Umbridge, of course.

In spite of his father's reassurances, he'd felt her eyes on him all through breakfast. Ordinarily he'd trust that Lucius had the situation handled, but this time something felt off. He got the impression that he was going to be on his own with this, both from his family and from the Hogwarts faculty. Albus Dumbledore was always such a soft old man-there was no chance he'd allow such things to continue under his roof if he had the power to stop it, and there was no chance he didn't know; his legilimency shields were stronger than Professor Snape's, so it stood to reason that his legilimency prowess was stronger to match.

That left the Ministry, Draco thought, choking down a few bites of breakfast and lamenting that he hadn't stuck to his routine and come down before everyone else. He'd just been so tired, and his bed was so inviting… Ministry, he reminded himself, shaking his head a little to clear it. He wasn't sure what laws there were surrounding using blood quills for detention, so that might not be the best weapon, but he was confident he could catch (or frame) her doing something illegal enough to lose her the job. What was the point in being the most powerful mentalist in the world, and a Slytherin, if he couldn't even get one teacher sacked?

He recognized Potter's internal monologue by now enough that he no longer mistook it for his own as the shorter boy entered the room, a flash of loathing for Umbridge mirroring Draco's own as he sat down. His friends flanked him, and while Draco steered well clear of Weasley's mind, he allowed himself to skim the surface of Granger's. Stars bloomed across his vision as he was overwhelmed again, but it was like being intoxicated; like over the summer when he'd felt of-age Swiss wizards reach that point of bliss in their drinking where they felt on top of the world. Breathing deeply, he focused on what she was actually thinking-low levels of anxiety over a potions essay she needed to work on were eclipsed by her concern for Harry. He ought to go to Dumbledore and complain, she was thinking, but Potter had already vetoed the plan.

Wondering if he, too, had noticed that Dumbledore clearly didn't have the power to interfere, or if he had some other reason, Draco slipped back into Potter's mind, searching for that train of thought. Oddly (for Gryffindor's famous sweetheart) Potter had a strong resistance not only to asking Dumbledore or Lucius Malfoy for help, but to seeking help from adults in general.

He had a deeply ingrained impression that he'd always be let down-where had _that_ come from? The wizarding world worshipped the ground famous Harry Potter walked on. As he delved deeper, memories began to play out in his head; a blonde man with a big moustache, a tall woman with a long neck, their son, chasing Harry, holding him down and hitting him (as young boys do, Draco supposed) but then the moustached man was hitting him, the woman was denying him food, his elementary teachers refusing to believe that the freak accidents around him weren't his fault…

"Something wrong, mate?" Crabbe asked in his usual low rumble, snapping Draco back to the present. He was sweating and gripping the table, he realized belatedly as he released his hands and rubbed his sleeve across his forehead.

"Upset stomach," he excused lamely, and it wasn't entirely a lie; his stomach was rolling sickeningly from the flashes of Potter's childhood he'd just endured.

'Talk about the top ten things I never, ever wanted to know about my enemies,' he grumbled internally, pushing away his bowl and sipping his tea.

"You've had a lot of stomach aches this year," Crabbe pressed quietly. "Have you seen Madame Pomfrey?"

Draco shook his head, and was saved from having to make an excuse by the first bell of the morning, which sent the easily-distracted Crabbe's thoughts immediately in another direction. Draco walked a few people behind his least favorite Gryffindor trio, carefully keeping his focus only on Granger's thoughts, hoping that the heady feeling he got from them would counteract the negativity he'd just absorbed.

On the walk down to the dungeons for potions, she was also considering ways to bring Umbridge down, some of them quite ruthless, and Draco was impressed against his will. She had dozens of potential plans, some of them morphing into detailed schematics, right down to the last detail, but she had to toss some of the best ones out because she wasn't so sure she could live with herself afterwards. Draco tucked those away in his own mind for future perusal, as he had significantly fewer compunctions when it came to revenge.

However, once they entered the dungeons and everyone was turning this way and that to shrug off their bags and claim a seat, their eyes met, and he felt the same awful mess of emotions that she got every time she looked at him. He didn't realize that he'd visibly flinched until he saw himself move through her eyes, and hurriedly severed the connection, paranoid that either she or their mentalist professor would figure out what he was doing.

The emotional climate of the classroom was average, at best. In spite of Snape's dislike of her, Granger felt right at home, which balanced out the choking fear that settled itself in Longbottom's gut every time he walked through the door. The rest of the various emotions fell along the scale in an even spread, and it became a buzz of noise that Draco was slowly, painstakingly learning to tune out when he was concentrating on his textbook. He could still hear it, of course, but it was like the dull roar of a crowd-wordless, just carrying a general mood.

Near the end of the period, Snape said something to Longbottom that Draco didn't catch, but it made for ten minutes of terror like an ice pick stabbing repeatedly into his brain. Other than that, the class had been quite bearable. He didn't have the edge with potions that he did with every other subject from hearing the way the professor thought of it, but he'd always been good at it, and the fact that he could still brew an excellent draught of peace while incomprehensibly distracted gave him a sense of pride, which buoyed him up until lunch time.

Although he didn't bother to read the notice pasted on the bulletin board, he listened in on Granger's thoughts; noting that the evil toad was now Hogwarts High Inquisitor, inspecting classes and whatnot. Granger was considering the different professors from what of Umbridge's perspective she could comprehend. Would McGonnigal be in trouble because she'd challenge her authority? When Hagrid came back, would her racist attitudes spell danger for him? Who did she want to win in a showdown between her and Snape? (Snape, obviously and undoubtedly, Draco added) What would be the consequences for losing such a match, if she was willing to literally torture underage students? The brunette Gryffindor's little pricks of fear rooted themselves into Draco's mind, and he swallowed hard, pulling away from her mind and scanning the room to look for someone more content.

The fear, however, remained in his mind as the day wore on. He hadn't thought of it that way before, but now that he'd seen it in her head, it frightened him to think what the rest of the year would be like if blood quills was only the first weapon in Umbridge's arsenal. What would she do to escalate things, he wondered sickeningly?

-0-

That night, he lay in bed, dreading sleep and the hundreds of people's dreams it would certainly bring, until nearly eleven when he finally gave it up as a bad job. Casting a disillusionment charm on himself, he quietly slipped out of the common room to wander the corridors; put some distance between himself and everyone else for a bit to clear his head. He hadn't taken his customary morning walks for the last couple of days, concerned that the temptation to fall asleep somewhere unusual would be too great, and he was feeling the loss.

However, to his surprise, as he neared the astronomy tower, he felt a couple of minds growing closer. He slowed his steps, wondering if they were teachers, but soon realized from the growing trepidation he felt from them that he'd stumbled upon a little knot of first years. They'd been in an empty classroom playing cards and had completely forgotten the time, and now they were afraid to leave because they'd be caught out of bed after hours.

"Really? I thought you'd be a bit cleverer, MacArthur," he said, taking off the charm and stepping into the room as he recognized one of the students. All five of them jumped, and Tracy MacArthur waved sheepishly in greeting.

"It's not on purpose, I swear!" the little Slytherin girl exclaimed. "We just lost track of time, and there's no way we can get to the Slytherin or Hufflepuff dormitories without getting caught…" she trailed off nervously and shrugged.

"How'd you get out here without anyone noticing?" a Hufflepuff boy asked quietly. Draco kneaded his forehead in exhaustion, pulling out his wand.

"The same way we're all about to get back to bed," he sighed. Playing the hero wasn't in his nature, but half of them were his housemates, and all things considered, he wasn't about to let a bunch of first years get caught out of bed with that horrible toad out for blood.

"Now," he announced as he disillusioned each one in turn and cast a muffling charm on their feet, "you're not totally invisible or inaudible, just unnoticeable, so move quickly and quietly and stay by me. We'll pass by the Hufflepuff common room first, then you three will follow me down to Slytherin." Five barely visible heads nodded and Draco disillusioned himself, then led them out like a macabre parade of invisible ducklings. (Honestly, if anyone ever found out about this he didn't think he could stand the humiliation, he thought as he realized how cutesy the tableau probably appeared.)

They made it as far as the Hufflepuff dorm without incident-one of the kids hugged him around his middle before entering-and were only two hallways away from Slytherin when Draco sensed Filch approaching. He changed courses, taking a longer route to avoid the aged, paranoid caretaker, only to realize that Umbridge herself was waddling towards them from another direction. He swore under his breath, wishing his stupid mental powers could have included a map of the castle so that he could avoid cornering himself in situations like this. By now, Umbridge's kitten-heel shoes were audible, and his housemates' fear thrummed through the air, like he could feel them trembling from two feet away.

He glanced around; all of the walls and tapestries down here were quite real, so there wasn't anywhere to hide. A small broom closet (which he knew from experience was full of clutter and would never fit more than one person) lay a few yards away.

"What do we do?" MacArthur breathed, groping blindly until her little fist was gripping his robes.

The closet wouldn't fit more than one large person-but two eleven-year-olds might just make it.

'This is what happens when I spend too much time in Gryffindor brains,' he groused internally. 'Why couldn't it have been Snape's night to patrol?'

"You two, slip into that closet and don't make a sound," he instructed quietly, opening the door silently with a flick of his wand. "stay completely still until everyone is gone."

The two first years cast him terrified looks before scrambling to obey, closing the door gingerly. Knowing that a disillusionment charm might tip off the two faculty members that they needed to look a bit harder for trouble, he dissolved the spells keeping himself hidden, slipped his wand into his pocket and strolled deliberately back the way he'd come like he couldn't sense Filch's approach. He figured that Filch would be proud of having apprehended a mischief maker and draw Umbridge's attention, so neither would be free to notice anything amis with the cupboard.

His hand tingled, phantom pain asking him why in Merlin's name he was doing this to himself. As the aged caretaker came into sight, pointing excitedly at him and demanding to know what he was doing out of Slytherin house this late at night, he found he didn't have a satisfactory answer for either of them. True to his plan, Umbridge waddled into sight a moment later, eyes gleaming, and he realized with a twist in his gut that between his father contacting her at the ministry (something she had seen as a challenge to her godlike authority) and this blatant transgression, he'd he'd placed himself firmly on her shit list.

Wonderful. Because he really needed more to deal with this year.

"Mister Malfoy," she simpered, "I do believe you have some difficulty respecting authority. I don't blame you, of course-not entirely. I blame your teachers, for letting you get away with so much in the past. We shall have to work on that, shan't we?" and then she gave a tiny giggle that made Draco really, really want to punch her in the throat, and assigned him a week of evening detentions.

He felt a pang from the little boy in the broom closet when she sentenced him; Parikh (the other Slytherin first year, whose name he caught at last) had the sudden and irrational urge to leap out of the closet and protest; MacArthur was holding him back, hand clamped around his mouth.

'Guess I'm not the only one turning into a bloody Gryffindor,' Draco thought as Umbridge carried on down the hall, satisfaction radiating off of her and making him want to vomit. 'Must be something in the water…'

Filch escorted him back to the dungeons, muttering gleefully about how much of a shame it was that the old punishments had been allowed to die out… it was a similar sadistic monologue to his other sadistic monologues over the years, and Draco tuned him out in favor of focusing on the two Slytherin first years who were just now judging it safe to creep out of the broom cupboard and take a different route back to their dormitory. Filch dropped him off and left in search of more trouble, and he sank down into his favorite arm chair by the window to the lake, resting his head back while he waited for the door to open.

It took about ten minutes for them to arrive, hearts still in their throats as they stumbled in and shut the door behind them as quickly as they dared. Draco flicked his wand, taking the spells off of them just as they noticed him.

"Next time," he grumbled tiredly, "someone bring a watch."

"Getting caught out after hours is really a whole week of detention?" Parikh exclaimed in disbelief.

"Normally it's only one evening, but Dolores Umbridge takes an unnatural amount of pleasure in ruining kids' lives," he responded, scrubbing a hand across his eyes and thinking that perhaps everyone else's nightmares were worth it for some physical rest, at least. "Steer clear of her bad side," he advised as he lay his head back, too bone weary to make it up the stairs to his bed.


	7. Night's Truth

Draco groaned as he tried to flex his fingers, sharp pains lancing across the raw, still-red back of his hand. As he'd suspected after noticing Potter's lack of healing, many days in a row left a likely permanent mark. He'd deliberately varied his handwriting and letter size so that as the cuts layered across his hand, the finished product would be illegible. Going through life with "I must be responsible with my time" carved into his skin was a humiliation he would not tolerate, even though Umbridge had noticed and reprimanded his sloppiness, keeping him late repeatedly and finally assigning him a weekend detention as well for his refusal to comply. He'd taken it in mutinous silence, too tired by that point to think of anything clever to say to get himself out of it.

By the time she'd released him that Saturday afternoon, tutting at the messy, blood-spattered parchment but mercifully deciding that she did not have the time to continue correcting his handwriting, he was so bone-weary that he barely made it back to the Slytherin common room before he fell onto a sofa and passed out cold. His last conscious thought was how grateful he was that the lighting and colors down there were so cool and dark; he couldn't imagine going through all that he was and then trying to rest surrounded by brightness and noise and wind bashing at tower windows. Blood dripped freely down his fingers and onto the thick black carpet, but Draco was already too far gone to feel it.

The first couple of hours were the most restful he'd had in weeks; hardly anyone was in bed yet, so there were precious few dreams for him to wander. He had a vague awareness that someone had the flu and was snoozing in the hospital wing, but that person's dreams were of the simple stream-of-consciousness kind that were easy for him to ignore.

Once everyone started retiring to bed, the new sounds and sensations were enough for him to shake himself awake and stumble up to his dormitory, noting (to his great surprise) that not only had someone cleaned his blood off the carpet, but they'd also bound his hand with a compress of murtlap essence. He wondered vaguely who could have had both the ability to do so without waking him and the inclination to do it at all, but when he reached his bed he barely got his shoes off before falling back asleep.

That evening's dreamscape had a dark tinge to it; everyone was troubled, and he didn't have to think particularly hard to realize why. Word had started to get out about what Umbridge did to those who displeased her—he suspected Parikh and MacArthur had started warning people when they noticed his bleeding hand a couple of days ago—and everyone was on edge. With her position as High Inquisitor, she could pop up anywhere, at any time, so no class was safe. Living with her was feeling a lot like…

It was a lot like living with Voldemort, he admitted to himself, equal stabs of loathing directing themselves at each of the unwelcome houseguests.

Mentally shaking himself, as it wouldn't do to add more dislike for the Dark Lord with the winter holidays looming in the not so distant future, he directed his thoughts towards finding Granger's mind, hoping that her complex multitasking and eternal expansion would be enough to distract him from everyone else's stress. However, when he found her, he was disappointed to realize that her tension and stress levels were just as high as everyone else's, her mind roiling sickeningly as she sweat her way through a nightmare.

Draco wasn't sure who told him about Granger's boggart in third year, but he remembered that it had been Professor McGonagall saying that she'd flunked out of Hogwarts. He'd rolled his eyes at the time—of course that bookworm's worst fear was failing classes; what was she going to do when she encountered real problems, he'd scoffed—but as he let himself sink further into her dream, and felt the scene wash over him, he had to admit that he saw the horror.

_Granger was standing in front of McGonagall's desk, only (in the manner of dreams) it was located in Umbridge's office and Umbridge herself was in a comfy ink armchair by the window. Snape was leaning against the wall, shaking his head in disapproval, and McGonagall was showing Granger her final exams—all marked T._

_Granger, for her part, was limp with panic as she read over each question, knowing the answers (and she really did, Draco noted thoughtfully; the test questions in this nightmare all made sense and so did everything Granger was thinking about them) but her responses written on the page were all troll-level dreadful._

" _Hem, hem," Umbridge coughed from the corner, and while Draco felt the overwhelming urge to walk over and punch her in the throat, Granger just wanted to sink into the thick plush carpet and vanish from existence._

" _Yes, Dolores, I agree," Snape commented smoothly. "If miss Granger is incapable of taking her education seriously, then I see no reason why any of us ought to waste our time trying to teach her."_

" _We took a chance, taking a completely untrained muggle born into our school," McGonagall sighed. "But it looks like you don't belong here after all."_

_Granger's feet were rooted to the spot, words stuck in her throat. She couldn't move; couldn't even scream, and her helplessness hit Draco like a punch to the stomach, sending him to his knees. He was half-aware that Dumbledore's pet phoenix and the Sorting Hat were now in the room, discussing how truly unqualified Granger was for Hogwarts, Gryffindor, and life (in that order) but he returned to himself enough to think straight for a moment._

_Getting swallowed up by someone else's dream was dreadfully uncomfortable, he knew from bitter experience, but it was difficult to pull himself out once he was this deep. One thing he'd studied but never tried was dream-weaving; the art of controlling one's dreamscape. It was meant to help wizards suffering from recurring nightmares and such, but he had wondered if he could use it to alter the dreams of those around him. Until now, his fear of being caught had kept him from dabbling in it, but at this point he had to admit that he was truly desperate. Surrounded by nightmares at every turn and stuck in one that wasn't his own, he decided that now was the time to give it a go._

_Slowly, beginning with Snape since he hadn't spoken in a while and was therefore outside Hermione's immediate notice, he erased components of the dream one by one. Each person in the room vanished, with the phoenix leaving last with a flash of golden tail feathers and a wordless note of phoenix song. He removed all of the furnishings in the room, then the room itself, until there was nothing but empty space. Then, beginning with grass and moving upward, he reconstructed the space so that they were outdoors, standing by a huge maple tree, with a rope swing hanging from a branch and a building just visible over the hill._

_He wasn't sure why he'd brought her to Dragenwold, but it was the first thing he'd thought of when he'd imagined safety and comfort. It was also a landscape he knew extremely well, so he didn't have to work too hard to recall the details. He pivoted, glancing around with pride. Everything was lit unnaturally, giving away that it was still a dream, and he had the nagging suspicion that if he lost focus the knot formation on the tree would start talking, but otherwise he hadn't done a half bad job._

" _What…" Hermione murmured, and he turned again to glance down at her. She was still kneeling, wiping her eyes, but he noticed the way bits of grass and leaves were clinging to her knees; she was as properly integrated into this dreamscape as he was._

' _Perhaps this empathy thing is going to be worth all the nonsense after all,' he considered with a mental shrug as he watched the gryffindor girl stand up and brush herself off, glancing around and finally settling her gaze on him._

' _Oh, bother,' he thought as he realized she could see him now—probably because they'd moved from her dream into his. But before he could decide how dream-him ought to act, memories of her previous dream were crashing over him like a riptide of insecurity; he could feel every bit of her deep-rooted terror that someone would decide she wasn't good enough and, after giving her a taste of life as a witch, would snatch it all away._

_And this time he could see where she'd gotten that idea. Because she was looking right at him when she thought it._

Draco opened his eyes, barely seeing the silver hangings of his bed before everything blurred, tears running down the sides of his face. He bit down on his fist to keep from sobbing, not knowing if he could stand the humiliation of anyone woke up and found him like this.

Feeling that some people hated him was one thing.

Having to feel what he'd _done_ to them to make them hate him was entirely different.

-0-

"You look positively flu-ish, Draco," Pansy wined, pouting and trying to pour him another cup of peppermint tea at breakfast. "I really think you should go see madame Pomfery."

"I told you Pans, I'm just tired," Draco sighed, covering his teacup for the third time that morning. He knew he hadn't eaten much, but he wasn't sure what he could keep down at this point. "Woke up at midnight, couldn't get back to sleep for love or money."

And that wasn't a lie. Once he'd cried himself out, he'd taken stock of the situation, mind running through the list of reasons he was upset, and trying to find ways to ease his pain. He was exhausted. He was mourning.

He was guilty.

He could not abide the thought of ever being in the same room with Voldemort ever again. In fact, he thought he might kill him if he ever was.

"Never took you for the breakfast homework type, Malfoy," Flint commented as he dropped into a seat opposite Draco and started shoveling bacon onto his plate. Draco glanced down at the book he'd half-heartedly opened in front of him and shrugged.

"It's kind of the opposite of that actually," he responded, lifting it up to show the cover with _1001 Positively Magical Destinations_ emblazoned across it. "I want to take a solo vacation for Christmas; get a bit of fresh air and foreign food, and sleep until noon if I please without my mother wanting me to be up and presentable every day," he added with a roll of his eyes. Everyone nodded and laughed, commiserating. He felt Crabbe realize that there might be a correlation to Voldemort living in his house, but his friend didn't comment. It wasn't like Crabbe wouldn't have been stressed out in that situation too.

"As long as there's a wizarding library nearby, I can get away with it," Draco shrugged, taking the book back and turning a page.

"Have you thought about Switzerland?" Pansy suggested immediately, and their housemates took over the discussion, recommending various European vacation venues. Draco left the page open to a lovely wizarding neighborhood in Paris, but the truth was, he'd already had a better idea. It wouldn't do, however, for anyone to figure out where he was really going.

Especially considering he meant for it to last a bit longer than the winter holidays.

In Defense class, he slouched back in his chair, holding his book up and reading silently as instructed—his travel guide tucked in front of it so he could pursue specific properties now that he'd settled on a town.

 _Ciculta_ , a magical village in Brazil, boasted less than 1000 people, but a roaring trade in magical items and creatures, mostly sold through Northern American markets. There was a school of wand-lore about fifty miles south of the town line, which meant plenty of student housing in town and a revolving door of young people moving in and out. No one would bat an eyelash at one British boy buying a crash pad for himself.

Near the western edge of the village, there was a large neighborhood with only a dozen or so houses. The properties were small, and the jungle in between was considered communal property; most of the people who lived there bred dragons, and so needed the space. One of these houses was on the market, as the elderly lemisch-breeding witch who'd owned it had retired and gone to live with her grandson's family.

The place was an unapologetic mess—claw marks on the walls, doors torn off, exactly as one would expect from baby dragons—but it was so far away from its nearest neighbors that the idea of having to do some repairs seemed hardly to be worth worrying about. Best of all, with the condition it was in and the inconvenience of it to neighbors or commerce, it was cheap enough that the money he'd inherited from Aunt Dee would cover the cost of the house, renovations, and leave some over for him to invest.

Making a mental note to speak to Goyle about where exactly to invest the remainder, he bookmarked the page, and—careful to seem as though he was taking notes on the textbook—drafted a letter to the seller. He knew that he couldn't avoid Voldemort and his own family forever, but he also knew that if he tried to go home now, it would mean instant disaster.

He was so wrapped up in making plans and scanning Umbridge's mind for clues she'd caught on to him—he did NOT want to wind up in detention again—that it took him a moment to realize that Hermione Granger was staring at him from across the room.

Hermione Granger, who apparently was thinking that the interruption to her dream last night had been less than absolutely natural.

Bloody hell.


	8. Bonds' Forming

Early Monday morning, Draco was shaken out of his light doze by a Picazuro Pigeon tapping its beak urgently against his dormitory window. Rolling haphazardly out of bed and swallowing a yawn, he slid climbed up on his night table and open the ground-level window, marveling that the pigeon had managed to find the right one. Since the Slytherin dorms were at the dungeon level, all of the windows that didn't face into the lake were enchanted to only be transparent from the inside. They let in plenty of light, mostly gently filtered green from the long grasses by the building's base, but from the outside, the light would always seem to reflect off at just the wrong angle for anything to be visible within.

Untying a capsule the length of his finger from the bird's leg, he ran a hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes, still blinking away sleep. The pigeon ruffled its feathers and flew off, and Draco closed the window, popping open the top of the tiny capsule and sliding the full-sized scroll that exited it deftly into his hand. He sank back down onto his bed as he unrolled the document, scanning it with his eyes and noting that all was in order; there was nothing left to do but sign off and deliver it. Then the Brazilian realtor could have the funds transferred out of his private Gringotts vault, and he'd be a homeowner at the age of fifteen.

Granted, he admitted to himself as he quickly and quietly dressed, it was a run-down bungalow in the middle of a jungle in a foreign country, which he was going to have to fix up entirely by himself, but it was still a house, and it would still be his. He felt a pang as he realized that buying his first house was an experience he would have liked to share with his family, but it really couldn't be helped.

He slipped on his shoes, then slid his bed curtains silently shut without any of his roommates stirring. When he was completely hidden in velvety darkness, he lit his wand, setting it down to pull out Aunt Dee's pack of cards and a thin stick of enchanted charcoal he'd lifted from Professor Flitwick's office. As he carefully inscribed the address and necessary runes on the Eight of Diamonds, he reflected that he was becoming quite adept at criminal activity. The runes glowed, flaring bright, and he fumbled and dropped the charcoal onto his ruffled bed in his haste to pull out his wand and mutter the additional incantation to make his new portkey reusable. The flare crackled for a moment like embers, then vanished, tendrils of smoke rising up off the card's unmarked surface.

'Here's hoping I did that right,' he thought nervously, as he tried to reassure himself that he'd listened to absolutely everything Flitwick was thinking when Longbottom had asked about how to create a portkey in class last week. He swallowed, slipping his wand back into the pockets of his robes along with the contract scroll.

"Here goes," he whispered, shifting his grip so that his thumb pressed over the middle of the card, where he'd written the runes. A tugging sensation behind his navel and a rushing feeling of wind from all around him assured him that he'd done the spell correctly.

When he opened his eyes, he was alone in a dark, pre-dawn forest. He pulled out his watch and noted that it had turned itself back by three hours to read 5:15am—he'd made it to the right time zone then as well. While he knew no one would be up and about to do business before he'd have to make it to his classes, he planned to take a look around the building, and then leave the signed contract in the outgoing letter box so it wouldn't have to wait for a transatlantic flight to get finalized.

This purchase was going to put quite a dent in his inheritance, but with every passing hour of this hellish term he'd become more and more certain that Aunt Dee had left him that money specifically for things like this. Based on what little he knew about Empathy, it was likely she'd had to plan out her successor over quite some time, otherwise her abilities would have passed automatically on to Bellatrix Lestrange, as her oldest surviving relative. With that being the case, she must have known what it would be like for him—to have to go from being Draco Malfoy to… well, whatever or whomever he was transitioning into.

The thought still frightened him, honestly. He tried not to dwell on it too much.

The house was larger looking than it had seemed in the pictures, but that might have been the way it loomed up in front of him in the almost complete darkness. Lighting his wand and flicking out three little balls of light to hover over him, he pressed his thumb against the doorknob to verify his identity as a known buyer. The door clicked open, and the three lights hovered near the ceiling, illuminating the front room.

If he hadn't known already that all the properties in this neighborhood were designed and used for dragon-breeding, he probably would have been terrified as the deep claw-gouges covering the walls were starkly illuminated from above. The room was six-sided, with three doors; the front, the balcony, and the kitchen, if he remembered right. A spiral staircase twirled itself down to his left, leading up to the bedrooms and bathroom and down to the basement. The property covered 30 acres, with two large stable-type outbuildings and a portion of a stream. His balcony looked out over a cliff, with a lake below, and his nearest neighbor was far enough away that he could only vaguely sense a human presence somewhere to his right.

In other words, redecorating aside, it was perfect.

Opening the first set of doors, he gingerly stepped out onto the balcony, first standing, then jumping in various places to make sure that it was completely sturdy. It was. The kitchen was decently outfitted for a single person, he imagined (not knowing much about their use), and the taps worked.

Downstairs was simple; a big room with two smaller rooms branching off of it—a laundry room what might have been a study; it had a large desk and several empty bookcases, all built into the walls. The main room had a large fireplace, but no other furnishings; the realtor had strongly suggested he get a comfy sofa and plenty of firewood for down there as it would be his shelter in case of inclement weather during storm season. A closer inspection of what appeared to be a closet revealed a second toilet off the laundry room

Upstairs had two bedrooms, each with its own balcony, which were staggered so that neither of them overhung the one on the ground level, and each with a ladder leading to the flat roof. He supposed if he was breeding dragons, access to open air from every room would be important. The taps worked in the large bathroom—although there were bits littered across the floor that looked suspiciously like shed dragon scales—and he considered the morning a success.

Quickly jotting down everything he'd noticed that he'd need to buy, clean, or repair, he dug around in his robes to find the blood-quill he'd carried with him, and spread the contract out on the hardwood floor. As the familiar pain seared into his hand, he grimaced with satisfaction that at least _this_ time he was using the damn thing for its intended purpose. Rolling up the parchment, he slid it into its tiny capsule—which it agreeably shrank to fit—and dropped it into the outgoing mail box next to what would soon be his front door.

With a flick of his wand, he recalled the three lights and exited the premises. That was another brilliant thing about this location, he reasoned; per Brazilian Wizarding Law, the Trace deactivated automatically on anyone over the age of fourteen upon crossing the country's border. He didn't have to be crippled for the next two years without his parents' magic to hide behind.

Of course, he reminded himself, he wasn't really and truly moving out. He was still going home.

Just, not this Christmas. And probably not Easter either.

The Dark Lord was still staying at the manor, he know from extremely subtle hints in his mother's letters, but He had to pick Himself a proper headquarters eventually, didn't He? Shaking himself a little, Draco pulled the enchanted Eight of Diamonds out of his deck of cards and touched the center, careful to land on his back on his bed so that his slightly muddy shoes wouldn't get all over his bedspread before he could mutter the spell to clean them.

No, he wasn't moving out just yet. He just wanted a… a hideaway, like a secret base or a part-time bachelor pad. Just somewhere he could go to rest and recharge when he needed to—where legally no one could come within ten acres of him unless he invited them. Peace and quie—

"You're gonna be late for breakfast," Crabbe announced, sliding back his curtains unceremoniously. He had just enough time to nip the pack of cards back into his pocket and then pretend to blink blearily up at his friend.

"You're wearing shoes in bed?" the taller boy commented, frowning.

"Yeah—er, no," Draco corrected. "I woke up in the middle of the night, didn't realize what time it was and got dressed in a sort of panic. Then I looked at the time and it was two in the morning, so I went right back to sleep. Guess I was too tired to get my shoes back off."

Crabbe nodded acceptance of that excuse, but Draco could hear him worrying internally that Draco's sleeping habits were getting worse over time. Did he have an anxiety or something? Draco exhaled sharply through his nose, stifling a laugh. 'Or something, yeah,' he thought dryly as he pocketed his wand and followed his roommates to breakfast, dreading the day's proximity to Dolores Umbridge with every step he took.

The Great Hall was in a nervous uproar when they reached it; apparently that morning Umbridge had used her position as Hogwarts High Inquisitor to ban all teams, clubs and study groups effective immediately—which, it took him a moment to realize, meant that Quidditch was cancelled until the teams could get her permission to re-form.

He heard Flint mentally begging him not to so much as look in Umbridge's direction until she agreed to let the Slytherin team re-form, so he kept his eyes focused on his breakfast, listening in on the conversation through Flint's mind. The Ministry Witch was hedging and hesitating, citing the fact that some of the Slytherin team just didn't have the right attitude, and needed to focus on their studies more. Draco bristled, knowing that she meant him specifically, and also knowing that he was running all O's for the semester, with the exception of his A in her class due to the missed lecture.

Flint showed his Slytherin colors at that point with a lovely metaphor about teamwork, relating it to voting patterns and good citizenship, and Umbridge smiled sweetly and signed off on his request to re-form the team. Draco felt Angelina Johnson seethe with rage watching the scene unfold; apparently the Gryffindor team was being left in limbo. She was boiling in her skin at the unfairness of it—and also panicking at the thought she somehow knew about the…

Oh!

A secret DADA class, taught by none other than famous Harry Potter, with a recruitment meeting in Hogsmeade that Umbridge couldn't possibly know about… Peeking into various minds around the room, Draco gleaned more and more of the story, picking up on people's tempers, their fear and their courage.

It felt like rebellion, and rebellion felt better than anything he could have imagined.

His heart pounded as he watched Cho Chang's memories of the first meeting in the Hog's Head pub. Potter's speech had been halting and emotion-driven, but she'd found it inspiring, and he was more than happy to let her inspiration flood him, distract him through breakfast with Umbridge's eyes on him—and through a brief conversation with Flint where the older boy demanded in no uncertain terms that he stop upsetting ministry representatives.

He almost considered trying to get in on the meeting—he had a whole plan to explain what he'd overheard from whom and how he knew—but realized quickly that his presence in a group of people that he'd spend years ridiculing wouldn't make for quite the emotional climate he was looking for. He made his way to potions class, resigned to the fact that he'd have to ride the wave of everyone else's excitement on this one.

To his surprise, Professor Snape was not alone at the head of the classroom. Mistress Toad herself was making notes on her pink clipboard, watching the class file in with narrowed eyes.

"You will notice we have a guest with us today," Snape drawled coldly. As Draco took a seat at the table beside the Gryffindor Trio, he felt Harry torn between nearly equal stabs of loathing for each professor in turn. Hiding a smirk, he scribbled a note on a scrap of parchment and carefully set it on the table in front of Potter without either authority figure noticing.

[Care to make a wager?] it asked. [Best comebacks, my head of house versus yours when it's her turn?]

Potter scribbled a response and tapped the paper with his wand, making it vanish, then reappear beneath Draco's hand on the table.

[You're on] it said. Potter was confused by his sudden friendliness, but the dark-haired boy quickly chalked it up to bonding over mutual hatred of the horrible pink thing now following Snape around the dungeon, peering into people's cauldrons and grudgingly nodding.

"And how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?" she asked primly after Hermione had rescued Harry's dangerously orange Strengthening Solution for the third time.

"Fourteen years," Snape responded coolly, and Draco regretted more than ever that he couldn't see into the older man's head. Getting this conversation from both perspectives would have been fantastic.

"You applied first for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I believe?" she continued, looking at him over the top of the clipboard.

"Yes," Snape replied, and most people would have missed the hint of disgust with which he regarded her before turning back to inspect Nott's potion. Draco couldn't help but agree with what he assumed was the sentiment there; Dumbledore really had a willing and qualified option and yet was "unable to fill the position" and they'd gotten stuck with this fuchsia-drenched nightmare?

"But you were unsuccessful?" She pressed on with the most sickening fake pout Draco had ever seen on an adult's face. This time, although he couldn't pick up any thoughts, he could feel Snape's rush of loathing and contempt as he turned slowly on his heel to regard her with a completely blank expression.

"Obviously," he intoned, pronouncing each of the four syllables with sarcasm dry enough to dehydrate Moaning Myrtle's bathroom in seconds.

[How much are we betting again?] Draco wrote quickly on the parchment scrap, along with a cartoon of a smirking face, and with a flick of his wand enclosed the note within the folds of Potter's textbook, corner sticking out to announce its' presence.

[50 Galleons] was the response. [Unless you're losing confidence?]

[50 Galleons it is.] he sent back, dropping the note on Potter's table as he stood up to deliver a flask of his potion to the front.

The rest of Monday and all of Tuesday passed quickly—hurried along by the undercurrent of excitement from the members of the newly formed and christened Dumbledore's Army—and suddenly it was Wednesday evening and Draco was carefully and discretely following a couple of Hufflepuffs to a deceptively empty corridor, and watching them vanish into what he knew was the Room of Requirement.

Disillusioned, Draco waited quietly around the corner until he felt Hermione realize that everyone on the list was inside, then he moved forward to sit with his back against the apparently empty wall, eyes closed, invisible as long as he didn't move a muscle. He was pleasantly surprised that, while the door didn't reappear for him, the room itself remained pressed against the corridor wall, accessible to his mind.

The group pulsed with energy as everyone paired up and Potter hesitantly began teaching, growing in confidence as the minutes trickled past. He'd been worried that the whole thing would fall flat somehow, but it was doing anything but that, and Draco soaked up the sensations like a dry sponge. The kids on the other side of the wall felt excited, felt powerful, felt like they were a part of something bigger than themselves—and not just a club or a team, something that _mattered_. They were fighting back against something they ought not have been able to challenge, and it was indescribable.

Eventually someone noticed the time, and Draco had to scurry away to avoid being stepped on and discovered. He had to wonder as he entered the Slytherin common room, if the Room of Requirement hadn't worked harder to hide its occupants from him because what he'd needed in that moment was to feel them, without being in the room with them.

'I'm overthinking,' he told himself firmly as he pulled out his Charms homework and forced himself to focus.


	9. Enemies' Enemies

Draco Malfoy was in so very, very much trouble.

Not only because his DADA essay had "mysteriously vanished" before class that morning, and he had detention that evening as a result.

Not only because the Gryffindor Golden Trio had spent the afternoon in Potions holding a whispered conversation about how remarkably different he'd been all semester; Potter and Hermione commenting that he seemed run down or preoccupied, but Weasley jumping straight to "really different—maybe possessed or something." That skinny ginger's animal instincts were getting on his last nerve—not a hard thing to do these days, although he could never be quite sure if it was his temper flaring or those around him.

Not only because Professor McGonagall had done a first-rate job of absolutely demolishing Professor Umbridge during her inspected lecture, meaning that—aside from the entertainment value of hearing her say she didn't usually allow people to talk while she was talking—he owed Harry Potter 50 Galleons.

No, Draco Malfoy was in deep, deep trouble because as he sat in the Great Hall, pretending to finish an enchantment, he was really staring at Hermione Granger, thinking in all honesty that she was starting to look rather attractive to him.

Of all the things he most certainly did not have the time or energy to deal with this year, developing a crush on his school rival was easily on the top of the list. So high up, in fact, that it hadn't occurred to him that it might be a problem until ten minutes ago, when she'd read an inspiring passage in her book about the 1612 Goblin Rebellion, and pulled out a thin notebook to jot down ideas for a secret anti-establishment news bulletin she'd been planning with a couple of other girls from Dumbledore's Army.

She'd smiled slightly, teeth resting on her bottom lip and eyes sparkling, looking almost predatory, and the light had hit her hair at just the right angle that it reflected off like a sort of halo, while shadowing half her face, save for the triumphant gleam in that eye. His face had gone hotter than a salamander drinking firewhiskey, and he'd felt eerily light-headed for a long moment until he'd had the sense to blink and glance away.

Then, because apparently he was turning into an actual bloody masochist for some reason, he'd looked back up again, admiring the way her hands moved when she took notes, in time with her mind translating the 17th Century references and language into the right references for 20th Century school children rising up against abusive faculty.

It wasn't that he'd never thought she was pretty before—he had excellent eyesight, for the record. But his dislike for her personality had always overridden it. Now, however, he knew better. In fact, as this generation's Empath, he now had a monopoly on the market of knowing better, and between the high he got off her mind, and the way her left eyebrow arched ever so slightly whenever she'd thought up something really clever and diabolical, it was becoming increasingly clear that he didn't stand a chance.

Honestly, he didn't even have the heart to add her to the list of things the Dark Lord would have against him when he eventually had to face Him; at this point he was straying so far outside the Death Eater ideology that having feelings for a muggleborn probably wouldn't even rate. That thought should have scared him a whole lot more—and it did scare him, certainly—but as time passed and his powers expanded, it was like his mind did too. Now the amount of fear that might have filled him up completely could only touch ten percent of him; troublesome, but it didn't cripple him or take away his ability to think straight like it would have a few months ago.

He smirked, remembering how when he was little he'd ask Aunt Dee if she was ever afraid during the adventures she'd describe to him. She'd laugh a little, a secretive smirk on her face, and tell him that she was afraid as anybody else, but she had a secret: she was bigger on the inside.

'Like the TARDIS?' he'd whispered.

'Exactly like the TARDIS, my boy,' she'd responded with a twinkle in her eye, then flick her wand towards her television so that Doctor Who would play. 'Now remember…'

'Don't tell mum and dad you let me watch muggle TV,' Draco had recited, leaning back in one of Aunt Dee's comfy armchairs, believing that she'd just made a Doctor Who reference because it was a rebellious thing for a pureblood lady to do.

Now, however, he understood what she'd meant; wondered, in fact, if in her younger days she mightn't have somehow influenced the Doctor Who writers a bit, even. That would explain a couple of the similarities.

"What are you making there?" Pansy asked, announcing her presence by draping herself across his shoulders from behind, and pointing at the three smooth, iris-sized pebbles he was rhythmically tapping with his wand.

"They're Language Pods, from Flourish & Blotts," he responded. "I'm just setting them to French; want to make sure they work before firecalling my hotel to make a Christmas reservation." He had, in fact, mail-ordered them the same day he'd bought his house in Ciculta; translating the written word page by page for study was one thing, but unlike Switzerland, Brazil didn't have English as a commonly taught foreign language, meaning that if he wanted to speak aloud to anyone, he'd need something more efficient for Portuguese. He'd gotten lucky so far, taking care of the sale entirely on paper and visiting the place three times without meeting anyone as of yet, but if he wanted to use the library—one of the reasons he'd chosen Ciculta in the first place—he was going to have to interact with people.

"Hmm, maybe I should buy some," Pansy mused, sitting down next to him and glancing at the price tag on the package. "We're going to St. Petersburg for the holidays, to visit my mum's extended family. She's tried to teach me some Russian but I'm awful at it, honestly…"

"Well there's a 'learning mode' to this kind," Draco explained, turning the page in the instruction booklet to let her peruse it. "If you enable it, you'll hear both your original and your target language, so that you start recognizing words while still being able to communicate. It's not recommended for use more than a few hours a day, though, depending on your level of proficiency and I.Q.—otherwise you might get migraines and have trouble focusing." He was a tiny bit curious about how it would react with his unusually enhanced brain; would he be able to do more? Less? The idea of a magical language aide becoming an experiment instead of an easily predictable crutch wouldn't have excited him three weeks ago, but it did now. Influence of Hermione Granger or Draega Black, he wondered with amusement?

"Well, I'll be lucky if I can manage ten minutes, then," Pansy grumbled, setting the booklet down in disappointment.

"Isn't English supposed to be one of the hardest languages to learn though?" Blaise commented, hastily swallowing a mouthful of meat pie. "We probably have an advantage with language learning, then."

"I hope so," Pansy sighed, and Draco privately echoed her sentiment.

The one really great thing was that tonight, after detention, he could go to his room, tell Crabbe and Goyle he felt sick and not to wake him up for anything, then portkey straight to his bungalow for the whole weekend. Granted, his hand would be bleeding and smarting, and he'd have to sleep on the sofa he'd just had delivered, but he'd be far enough away from other people that he was very nearly guaranteed a good night's sleep, Friday night, Saturday night, AND Sunday night as long as he woke up early enough. The great thing about his dorm mates was that if he told them he absolutely didn't want to be disturbed, they'd all leave him be, unlike what he imagined would happen if he roomed with noisy Gryffindors—or worse, friendly Hufflepuffs.

He'd mail-ordered some other furnishings to be delivered Saturday morning, and gotten the Hogwarts elves to pack him a massive basket of food—enough for the whole weekend. That was one thing he hadn't thought of; cooking for himself. The Malfoys had two (remaining) house elves, and between them and nearly unlimited funds for eating out and room service when traveling, Draco had never touched a stove in his life. It couldn't be that different from potions, could it? After all, Potter was apparently a pretty good cook, in his own estimation, and found potions a much more difficult task in comparison. At his request, they'd included a cookbook, an he thought he'd even noticed some bookmarked recipes.

Dinner ended much too soon considering what several of them would have to endure afterwards—himself and Potter included. They met the Weasley twins and a little slip of a Hufflepuff first year named Alinda Kyle at the doorway of the DADA classroom; when there were more than two students at a time in detention, Umbridge used the classroom for space.

"Slummin' it, Malfoy?" George Weasley quipped, not having seen him in detention before, apparently. Draco said nothing, opening the door and stalking wordlessly to one of the tables. This time he was writing 'I must not have a bad attitude towards authority figures.' The sentence had the highest available volume of the letter "t" while still pretending to preserve the meaning, he noticed with an internal flinch, thinking about how doing the crosspiece hurt as it passed over the raw downstroke.

Potter's was the same as always; 'I must not tell lies.' Weasleys both had 'I must not disrupt my classmates' learning environment,' which hinted at a story in their minds that he could probably distract himself with for a while. Kyle, who was trembling like a halfway vanished boggart, was to write 'I must not pass notes in class;' the conspicuous lack of a second criminal with such a phrase suggested that she'd been betrayed. Draco breathed through a now-familiar rush of rage at all of this nonsense—at children turning over other children to be cut up by a sadist, probably out of fear for their own safety, and not one adult at hand who could object without never being able to work again.

Draco had a sneaking suspicion that things would have to get worse before they got better; after all, there were technically no laws regarding the use of blood quills by anyone and for whatever purpose the user desired.

He'd checked.

Thoroughly.

There _were_ fairly recent Hogwarts bylaws listing plenty of punishments that were prohibited, but this wasn't on such a list, and the argument could easily be made that it was bodily safer than serving detention in the forbidden forest for example. Things like scrubbing the school awards could also lead to raw skin, aching joints, and other temporary physical pains, an unlike a cut or scrape with a non-magical implement which might also include nicked tendons, bruising or other side-effects, this method limited the damage to skin only. Other than the affront to wizarding traditions, he didn't have a leg to stand on in saying that this was cruel and unusual.

Draco absolutely refused to look at the clock, and so did Potter—neither of them wanting to give Umbridge the satisfaction of seeing them squirm—but between the Weasleys and Kyle, he saw twenty, thirty, forty minutes tick away. The boys all managed to suffer in silence—this wasn't nearly the most painful thing that any of them had endured, after all—but Kyle was unused to pain, and at eleven years old, living away from her parents for the first time, this was more than she could bear. Ten minutes in she was crying silently, at twenty she was whimpering, and by the forty minute mark her hand was shaking so badly that she'd fumbled and dropped her quill three times.

Umbridge was sitting at her desk at the head of the classroom, sipping tea and looking serene, but on the inside she was torn between enjoying her victims' suffering and irritation that Kyle kept stopping. She was starting to consider keeping her longer, or perhaps assigning a second detention the next afternoon, and bile rose up in Draco's throat. Gently wrapping his fingers around his wand through his robes, he concentrated as hard as he could—which he was getting better and better at, thanks to his gift—and sent a nonverbal spell towards Umbridge's index finger. It had the desired effect, the light burning sensation giving her the false alarm that she'd tipped her teacup too far back, and she immediately corrected, spilling the hot contents all down her front.

As she jumped up, first trying to vanish the spilt tea, then mourning the wrecking of her shirt from the milk residue, which had immediately stained the pale pink cloth, Draco felt each of his fellow detainees wondering who'd been responsible for that. (Incidentally, only Fred Weasley thought he might have been at fault.)

"I will be back shortly," she announced, waddling past. "I will expect each of you to have completed a reasonable number of lines when I return." The door opened and shut, and Kyle immediately collapsed back onto her chair, clapping her uninjured hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs. Potter set his quill down as well, turning to draw the weeping girl into his arms, trying to simultaneously comfort her and teach her to dig her nails into her palm to distract herself from the larger pain in her writing hand.

"Wonder what the demons in hell do, when the Devil pops out to go to the loo?" George Weasley commented, shaking out his hand with a wince. Draco snorted quietly with laughter, causing the twins to turn and peer at him suspiciously.

"Hey," he said, raising his hands in mock-surrender. "Truce, where that chintz nightmare's concerned?

"I swear she's the lint off my mum's old jumpers come to life," he muttered as an afterthought, and although the gingers in the room were largely unimpressed, Kyle coughed out a laugh as she got ahold of herself.

"Yeah, right down to bigotry and sadism," Fred quipped. "I'd believe she originated in a Malfoy basement."

"Weren't you meant to writing your precious father; taking care of this?" Potter demanded in a hiss, waving his hand at the others to keep it down.

"Yeah, as it turns out, not so simple," Draco muttered, quite content to change the subject and not start an argument he couldn't win in time for the architect of their suffering to return. "Technically speaking, she hasn't done anything illegal yet," he sighed as he turned back to his page.

"You _are_ kidding," George Weasley just about choked, gesturing violently around at all the blood. Draco shook his head disappointedly.

"Sadly, no. These quills are a bit of a loophole. I hear her shoes," he lied, sensing that she was headed back towards them, and the other occupants of the room turned back to their torment with varying expressions of disbelief and horror.

Alinda Kyle made it through the rest of the session, although when the door shut behind them, her knees gave out and Fred had to catch her as her knees immediately gave out.

"We'll take her back to her dormitory," George murmured, leaving Draco and Potter alone for the walk towards Slytherin and Gryffindor houses.

"By the way," Draco said after a few minutes of silence, digging in his robes for the bag of gold, "McGonagall was brilliant this morning," he acknowledged.

"Didn't think you'd actually pay up if you lost," Potter commented after a long pause, taking the bag and pocketing it without looking inside.

"Sod off," Draco huffed, "I keep my promises."

"Since when?" Potter demanded with one eyebrow raised so far it vanished into his wild bangs. His mind was supplying a memory of a supposed wizard duel that had in fact been a trap back in first year. Draco didn't really have a good comeback for that—at least not without divulging his greatest secret to Harry can't - keep - his - mouth - shut - for - eight - seconds - straight - without - landing - in - detention Potter.

"Since now; I dunno," he sighed, rolling his eyes. Both boys paused as they reached the spot where they'd have to part ways. "We have a common enemy," he finally explained. "I may not like you at all, but I hate her a whole lot more. So for now…" He shrugged, trailing off.

"Truce," Harry quoted, eyes narrowed, deciding if he ought to trust this change. He frowned, then stuck out his hand, wordlessly. Draco hesitated, remembering vividly that September 1st several years ago when he'd stuck out his hand, offering friendship—well, allyship, more like—and Potter had refused him. Slowly he took the offered hand, both of them still sluggishly bleeding, and they shook. As they turned to leave, Potter was wondering if, in addition to Umbridge, he might have meant Voldemort. He shook that thought off as ridiculous.

As Draco descended the stairs, however, he found he was wondering the very same thing.


	10. Paths' Crossing

Draco awoke before dawn, his body still thinking he was in England and that is was three hours later into the morning. He adjusted himself on the sofa, glancing blearily around the room; this was the first time in a very long time that he'd slept through the night and awakened not knowing where he was. It took him a moment to remember that this was his house in Brazil—which he'd christened "Dragon's Nest" last night—and that he was alone on the property, explaining his peaceful sleep at last.

"I'm coming here _every_ weekend," he mumbled sleepily, rolling over and settling back in for another hour and a half.

The next time he regained consciousness, he sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and disentangling himself from the cocoon of blankets he'd wrapped in last night. He'd tried to sleep in the Great Room on the main floor, but he'd been too hot and too distracted by all the jungle sounds and too weirded out by the three doors surrounding him, even though he knew they were all magically sealed from the inside. He'd wound up levitating the sofa down to the basement, which had reminded him of Slytherin house—cool, dark, and above all, safe from intruders.

"Maybe I'll renovate the basement study into a bedroom, and put the desk and shelves on the top floor," he considered aloud, punctuated by a yawn, as he ascended the stairs, levitating up the trap door that he hadn't noticed on his initial perusal of the house. When closed, it made the house look to the casual observer like it was only two levels; if he added a magically extended rug and a couple of charms, he'd have a pretty secure secret base within his secret base.

Secrecy seemed more and more important when he was away from everyone else, and could really focus on the fact that Voldemort was living in his parents' house and looking for the Empath. Draco was 100% certain that the Dark Lord would _not_ be pleased when He discovered that Draco had hidden from Him.

"Maybe a fidelius charm too," he mused as he opened up the back window and the door to the balcony, letting in the pale dawn light stream in.

He'd repaired the scratches on the walls where he could, and hung simple tapestries where he couldn't, making the space look significantly less disturbing. Mind, it looked like some kind of hippie conjurer lived there, because that was the style that the only shop owner in the local market who spoke English had available, but nonetheless, they were a world of improvement.

Riffling around in his school bag, Draco retrieved one of the Language Pods he'd set to Portuguese, and strung it on the cord around his neck with his pendant. He'd have to go out later and do some shopping, and this time he wouldn't get stuck with chakra-themed hangings due to language barrier. He'd bought three of them, thinking he'd leave them in various places as backups if he forgot, lost or broke one.

Or, you know, just in case his parents ever came to visit. Or came to stay.

He shook his head, trying to dislodge that stupid thought. His mother wouldn't leave his father, and his father wouldn't leave Voldemort—not least of all because it would be tantamount to suicide. Anyway, why would they? They were guaranteed positions of great power and favor once the New World Order was up and running. They wouldn't give up on their own future because their underage son had cold feet about doing his bit; that would be ridiculous.

"What in the hell," he grumbled as his hand brushed across a familiar roll of parchment, and he pulled out his mysteriously missing Defense essay.

"I can't have overlooked it," he whispered in disbelief; he'd quite literally bled over its absence, after all! Frowning, he held it up and sniffed it experimentally, nearly dropping it when he got a strong whiff of cologne. Gryffindor Quidditch Hopeful Cormac McLaggen's cologne, if he wasn't mistaken. (He doubted very much that he was—anyone could smell that bloke coming at ten yards.) He must have vanished the essay from a distance, while Draco was distracted, then returned it later in the day to hide the evidence if Draco had tried to trace the magic of the disembodied particles left in his bag.

Making a mental note to figure out what the burly Gryffindor had against him before it escalated, he unpacked the box the house elves had provided, reaching down the side for the cookbook he'd requested and flipping to one of the bookmarked breakfast recipes that looked easy.

Steak and eggs sounded like a nice, simple dish for a beginner.

It wasn't.

First there was the matter of lighting the stove, and getting used to the burners, which were slightly different from the ones he used for potions. Then, once he had the steak in the pan, there was the matter of the eggs. The instructions called for him to stir "occasionally."

But which direction? How many times? How occasionally? The first batch scorched while he was frantically re-reading the page—and after he'd spent so long picking out the bits of shell he'd dropped in the pan, too!

The meat was starting to smell nice when he started on his second batch of eggs, but as soon as he put the egg pan back over the flame, fire shot out from under it; apparently when he was tossing out the previous attempt, he'd spilled butter under the pan and it had ignited. Magically dousing the fire also put out the burner and ruined the eggs, and they joined their predecessors in the bin.

By the time he'd cooked the third round of eggs, the meat still smelled good, but it felt hard when he poked it with a fork; he figured he'd need to cook it a while longer for it to get tender, so he shoveled his eggs onto a plate and started to eat them. They weren't half bad, for all the drama that went into making them.

He was nearly finished eating when he smelled smoke.

Apparently, cooking the steak longer was _not_ the correct method, he discovered from the smoke now pouring up out of the pan. Panicking, he switched off the burner and tried to grab the pan off the stove, only to discover that somehow the handle had grown hot as well; he managed to get it off the burner, but it spilled all across the countertop, still sizzling ominously.

With a sigh, he flung open the kitchen windows to let the smoke out, fanning in front of his face so he could breathe, and sat back down to finish his eggs.

"Okay, middling success, and I'm not hungry anymore," he told himself bracingly, gulping down a glass of milk and listening idly to the sound of something swallowing near him.

Wait, what?

He whipped around to look back at the countertop; most of the smoke had cleared, so he could clearly see the little scaly lump crouched in the burned mess, happily gulping down the spilled bits of meat.

There was a housecat-sized dragon in his kitchen.

Draco blinked.

The dragon licked up the last of the juices and waddled around to look back at him.

Neither of them moved for a long moment.

Then the dragon's snout twitched, and it flapped clumsily over to the opposite counter, where the rest of the ingredients Draco had unpacked were laid out.

"Oi, no," Draco exclaimed, standing up and drawing his wand, "get away from there! That's not for you!" What spells even worked on dragons? He tried to remember the Triwizard Tournament last year… He didn't know how to hypnotize it, and getting on a broom and flying away didn't keep it from eating him out of house and home—literally. That left…

With a wave of his wand, he transfigured a spoon into a little gray mouse, which scurried off, catching the dragon's attention perfectly. While the reptile chased the construct he'd made, Draco quickly re-packed his food, storing the whole basket in the preservation cupboard for safety.

That was when he felt another person approaching.

"Thank Merlin," he muttered, as a quick glance at her mind showed that she was looking for an escaped baby dragon. The dragon in question tripped over its massive foot claws and wined pathetically when the mouse ran to the opposite wall and turned back into a spoon with a metallic "ping."

"Hello," the woman's voice greeted him once she was within sight of the window. He had the Pod on language learning mode, so he heard both the English word and its Portuguese counterpart, both when she spoke and when he replied.

"Morning," he responded, walking towards the window. The baby dragon flapped its wings, bumping into the wall before it was able to ascend to the right height to perch on the windowsill.

"Ah, there he is!" the woman exclaimed. "I expected as much; sorry about him."

"Yours, then?" Draco checked pointlessly as the dragon got airborne again, flying over to drape itself around the back her her neck, her long black hair covering most of its body like a cape.

"Yeah, my husband and I breed Western Nightwings; we live just down the way. I'm Beatriz Santos," she added as an afterthought, offering a strong, tanned hand to shake. Draco held up his own right hand to show the bandages wrapped around it, and she dropped hers understandingly.

"Draco Black," he responded, using his mother's maiden name, same as he had when he bought the house. It wasn't that "secret" of an identity, he supposed, but it wasn't like he was going deep underground in hiding—he just wanted a little privacy. Plus, since his parents were both purebloods, legally he could use either name; if his purchase contract ever came under scrutiny for any reason, it would hold up in court.

"'Draco,' eh?" she echoed. "You moved to the right neighborhood, didn't you?" Draco laughed, quietly scouring her mind to make sure she didn't somehow recognize him. He was quickly satisfied that she was in fact just a friendly neighbor who thought his name was ironic; she had a frank, open mind, and was far more interested in her growing population of Nightwings and the addition they were building onto their house than in international wizarding politics.

"Again, sorry about the naughty little one," she continued, "did he set anything on fire?" she added, leaning sideways to peer around him, probably noticing the faint residual smell of smoke.

"Er, no," Draco responded, charginned. "I did that actually. It's safe for that type of dragon to eat burnt steak bits, right? 'Cause he ate the whole thing after I ruined it. It didn't really occur to me to stop him."

"Totally safe," Beatriz laughed. "They 'cook' their food with their fire breath when they're this young so they can digest it easier—he must've smelled the burning steak and thought it meant specially catered breakfast."

"Well he saved me the trouble of binning it afterwards," Draco said with a shrug, "so it turned out all right."

"That's good," Beatriz nodded, thinking privately that this poor english kid definitely needed cooking lessons. Draco wasn't even embarrassed—she was absolutely right. "I'll be off then. Sorry, again about your breakfast." Draco waved her off good-naturedly.

"I'll have to go buy a cookbook or something, to go with the house," he laughed, not wanting to admit that he'd had instructions and still completely failed. "Hopefully I won't mess up badly enough to invite dragons into my kitchen again."

"Good plan," Beatriz said, then waved goodbye and turned to leave. "See you around, Draco."

'I am _definitely_ eating out this afternoon,' Draco thought as he watched the baby dragon's tail poke contentedly at its human's shoulder.

-0-

Draco had read up on Cadocimento, the most extensive wizarding library in the world. He'd seen moving pictures of the building, inside and out; knew that there were whole halls of study rooms equipped with beds for people who had fallen so deep into a literary rabbit-hole that they had no hope of climbing out before morning. He knew that there were magical contraptions for patron usage beyond anything Hogwarts could aspire to afford. He had a map of the building in the Ciculta guidebook he'd received from the realtor.

None of these things could have prepared him for actually arriving at the library itself.

Usually, a building of that size might make a visitor feel small, intimidated—and perhaps it did, to other people—but Draco's senses were exploding like fireworks in his mind. Every corner of the library was filled with knowledge, and he could feel it as thousands of people soaked it up. It was so, so different than at school; the Hogwarts library had too strong a flavor of rush and resentment. Too many of the students spent time there because they had to, because they had work they had to do whether they cared about it or not.

Cadocimento, however, was situated at a hub of commerce and innovation, near a school of expert wandlore. Most of the patrons were there simply because there was something they wanted to know; that they were trying to understand.

That immense and beautiful hunger for learning that he'd found so often in Hermione's mind—it was everywhere here, emanating from thousands of passionate people at once.

' _Every_ weekend,' he repeated to himself as he made his way to a whole room on mentalism. 'Coming here every single one.'

The afternoon blurred past, time both racing by and slowing to a standstill, as it did on the very best kinds of days. While Empathy itself was only referenced in basic, Draco found resources on eighteen different kinds of mental warding which seemed like he might be able to use for controlling thought and feeling intake. Instead of taking out books and leaving empty holes on the shelves, Cadocimento patrons pressed the titles on the original books' spines, and a perfect copy would present itself, with a notice on the front that it was library property and would vanish in 30 days. By the time the sun set and Draco was headed back to Dragon's Nest, he'd checked out seven books, which he barely managed to cram into his school bag.

He was just thinking that he'd have to stick with sandwitches tonight, as he was too tired and hungry to try making anything else, when he felt someone approaching his front door. He hadn't installed a doorbell, so after a futile moment of glancing around, the visitor knocked.

"Hello," he greeted the stranger as he pulled the door open. The man had a long brown beard with little gold charms braided into it, and a rune-inscribed ring through his septum—a remarkably wizard-looking head, contrasting sharply with his tye-dye tank top and scruffy cargo shorts.

"Evening," the man greeted jovially, "I'm Pablo Santos—Beatriz's husband," he added unnecessarily. Draco smiled brightly—partly because he wanted to make a good impression on his other new neighbor and partly because a brief scan of the man's mind (and the delectable scent wafting up from the bundle in his arms) indicated that he'd brought him _food_. Draco's stomach growled audibly, and he decided right that moment that the Santos's were actual angels incarnate.

"Nice to meet you Pablo," he responded, opening the door a little wider to admit the man as if he did not know that he was just there to drop off a package and leave; manners and all.

"My wife said that one of our dragons ate your breakfast, so this," he introduced, handing over the delectable-smelling bundle, "is an apology gift. And this one," he added, holding up a book that he'd been carrying beneath it, "is a housewarming gift." The title was _101 Homestyle Brazilian Meals_ , and upon briefly flipping through it, Draco saw that they'd bookmarked a couple of recipes with notes like "easy, good for beginners."

"You're a life-saver, Pablo," Draco complimented.

"I'll pass it on to Bea and Bumble," Pablo chuckled, turning to leave. Draco was so mesmerized by the smells coming out of the bundle as he said thanks once more that it took him a moment to catch that "Bumble" was what they'd named the baby dragon who'd gotten loose. It was a fitting name, he decided with a snort.

The food turned out to be a dozen cheese rolls, which he matched in the cookbook to a recipe for Pão de Queijo, and a jar wrapped in a knitted cozy of Feijoada; black bean and pork stew. It didn't taste remotely like anything he'd had before—the spices were completely different—but it was delicious nonetheless. He saved half the stew and most of the rolls for the next day, and spent the evening perusing the cookbook until he fell asleep with it in his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heheheheh bby dragon!


	11. Danger Looming

The thing about Umbridge was, she hated muggleborns.

There were plenty of other people she hated of course; giants, merpeople, homosexuals (Pansy considered herself incredibly lucky that she hadn't been the unfortunate one to find that out on behalf of the school) girls who wore makeup, Harry Potter, himself… the list was extensive.

But she _also_ hated muggleborns. And the thing about the way Draco hated _her_ was, that now every time a negative thought occurred to him about muggleborns, he was starting to hear it in her voice.

And it was making him sicker by the hour.

He sat at breakfast, carefully practicing the technique he'd studied up on last night (simply put, focusing on reading his _own_ mind with Empathy instead of anyone else's) putting all of his considerable mental energy into thinking each of his thoughts like they contained the secrets of the universe. And the secrets they contained was that he'd heard phrases including "mudblood" three times so far, and each of them sounded like _her_ talking, even though her thoughts were perfectly muffled for the moment.

He couldn't simply silence them, either; then he'd lose the thread of the technique. He had to think each of them intentionally, then move on to thinking that he didn't want to think that way anymore.

He remembered asking Aunt Dee once what she thought of muggles—after all, she was a classy pureblood lady, yet she had a house full of muggle things, muggle books, and muggle TV shows. She'd said some bits about how she liked their innovation; the things they came up with to get along in life without magic, but she must have sensed his internal disgust, because she'd changed tacks.

'Are you asking me because you want to know what I think, or because you want to tell me I'm wrong?' she'd asked her eight-year-old nephew shrewdly.

'Mama says,' he'd responded diplomatically, 'that they're simple-minded creatures, and that's why I've got to marry a pureblood girl, to make sure that my kids are as smart as possible.' His parents had had plenty more to say on the subject of muggle degradation, but he got the impression that Aunt Dee might be upset by that, so he stopped after the one example.

'Tell me this, then,' she'd asked him, 'do you think the Doctor is stupid?'

'No, he's brilliant,' Draco replied immediately, 'but he's fictional auntie.'

'The people who wrote him aren't,' she'd reminded him. 'What about my television, then; do you think you could take it apart, tell me how it works?' She'd once dissected a radio and attempted to explain its inner workings—Draco had done his best to listen, he really had, but his head had spun by the time she was done. 'A muggle invented those, without magic.

'Muggles have an incomplete knowledge of how the world works; they're missing a whole big chunk of it called magic—because we hide it from them, mind you—and yet somehow they can know and understand enough to do everything they've done,' she'd continued. 'So no, I don't think they're stupid at all. I think that somewhere along the line, some wizards with fancy-sounding names wanted to feel important. And plenty of people—especially old people with fancy-sounding names—want to feel important, so this caught on quick. So they made up a bunch of rules about who was or wasn't a wizard; sometimes who was or wasn't a human being,' she'd added gravely, and her eyes hardened. 'Even though we don't know even now what exactly causes a person to be born with or without magic, bloodline or otherwise.

'Now, little dragon, answer me this,' she'd whispered conspiratorially with a twinkle in her eye, 'do you think I'm to sort of person who follows rules made up by old people?'

'Auntie,' Draco had whispered back with a stifled giggle, 'you _are_ an old person.'

The conversation had dissolved after that; Aunt Dee wasn't the sort to hammer her point home when her audience wasn't ready to listen. But now—now it meant something.

Now that he knew she'd been willing to die over the belief that wizards and muggles were not so different. After all, he reasoned, she'd refused to join Voldemort the first time around, and from what he had already experienced of her power, being blind and wheelchair-bound wouldn't be much of a setback at all.

There was also the fact that she'd travelled extensively throughout her life. When he was a kid, that had made her seem adventurous and exotic, but now… He was already barely able to hold onto his family's core beliefs, just from having this power at Hogwarts. If he'd travelled to all the places she had, encountered minds all over the world, experienced the heart of every place he touched… That sort of _bigotry_ couldn't possibly have stayed alive in her.

And yet, she'd still respected his parents' wishes, up to a point. She'd never forced the issue, just answered questions when he asked and letting him watch and read what he wanted. She'd given him a choice; something his parents' probably didn't even realize they'd tried to deny him.

And apparently, in her dying moment, she'd been willing to trust him to make the right one.

He might have taken a moment to wallow in how cruel the situation was—that if he wanted to keep himself and his family safe he would have to spend the rest of his life defying his godmother's dying wish—but fortunately the morning mail arrived, distracting him both out of his reverie and out of his focusing technique. The emotions of the Great Hall rushed in as the owls swooped down, and he accepted the receipts for three mail orders and a letter from his mother, while absentmindedly following what he was pretty sure was a Howler with his eyes.

It was when he Howler was delivered to the teachers' table that he really took notice, however.

When eight more joined it, hovering directly in front of one Dolores Umbridge, several other people turned their heads, interest piqued.

When the number increased to twenty-five, a great hush fell on the hall, as everyone leaned slightly backwards; both wanting to hear what someone was about to have the audacity to say and also not wanting to be within eardrum-shattering range.

Umbridge blinked in confusion, looking to her left and right as if she thought that they might be addressed to someone else. However, before she'd had the chance to decide what to do, on an unseen signal, all twenty-five envelopes opened. Draco braced himself for shrieking, only to hear… music?

Heavy-beat guitar and drum music was playing softly from the red envelopes, which (in the manner of howlers impersonating the body-language of the recordee) started to sway back and forth like they were dancing. Then a few notes in, a voice finally made itself heard.

_We don't need no education…_

_We don't need no thoughts control…_

_No dark sarcasm in the classroom…_

_Teacher leave them kids alone…_

_HEY! TEACHER! LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE!_

As the singing continued, Draco plucked the title out of Seamus Finnigan's head— _Another Brick in the Wall_ —and more to the point, the fact that it was a muggle song.

Umbridge had been frozen in her seat for a long moment, but she'd snapped out of it, and was now trying to vanish the howlers. However, true to the Howler brand, they were resistant to vanishing, destruction, silencing charms, and just about anything else anyone could think of. That was the point of them, after all.

"Whoever did this is my hero," Pansy muttered as she watched Umbridge hop to her feet, throwing spells haphazardly at the singing envelops, looking more and more frazzled by the second. "A dead hero pretty soon, I'm sure, but still." Draco nodded, passing it off as cracking his neck. She might have been preoccupied at the moment, but he was pretty sure that once the song ended he did NOT want to be the last one left grinning.

The reason for the multiple howlers at once became evident as the singing changed from one voice to a choir of children. The volume increased to the point that Professor Snape was now actually trying to help, managing to disintegrate two of the twenty-five offending missives.

Eyes glued to his food in spite of his desire to watch the whole thing play out, Draco did a mental sweep of the hall, searching for the one person not feeling any surprise.

When he discovered it was Hermione Granger, his own surprise nearly took his breath away.

This was… significantly bolder than anything he'd expected from her. Once he'd gotten ahold of himself, he followed the thread of her thoughts until he got to the memories associated with this very public prank.

Apparently, Harry had repeated the bit he'd said about how Umbridge hadn't done anything technically illegal yet, and that had sparked the idea in Hermione's mind that two could play at that game. She'd researched and found no restrictions on howlers that would prevent her from sending so many to whomever she pleased, and had purchased them on the last Hogsmeade weekend. She'd then mailed the whole stack to none other than _not_ -actual-mass-murderer Sirius Black, who had obligingly recorded the song from his muggle record collection, then sent them from his local post office so that they couldn't be traced back to a student.

'I sure can pick 'em, can't I?' he thought, equal parts impressed and terrified.

The howlers were shrieking now; a hysterical man demanding that someone eat their meat, or they couldn't have any pudding, and Umbridge took a misstep back, knocking over her chair and falling right on her arse. The song ended just in time for the titter that rippled through the great hall to be clearly audible, and Umbridge glared up with wild eyes, accusations on her lips and her hand twitching to curse someone, but Dumbledore stood up before she had the chance to speak.

"While I've often said that music has a magic all on its own," he began, although Draco could feel him trying to hide his mirth through his many layers of mental shields, "it is important for us all to remember to respect this school and all of its teachers. As such, I am asking that this morning's entertainment not be repeated."

Umbridge deflated as he spoke—which was no doubt the reason he'd opened his mouth in the first place, so that she wouldn't get the chance to blast anyone's head off—and righted her chair with a flick of her wand, sitting back down and trying to finish her breakfast.

"What do you think she'll do when she catches whoever did it?" Goyle wondered aloud. The punishment possibilities in Umbridge's mind were such that Draco could neither find his voice to answer that question nor finish his breakfast.

It was with more dread than usual that he walked to the DADA classroom, sitting down and trying his best to hide behind his book. The students filed in, sitting quietly, trying not to fidget, everyone waiting for the axe to fall.

"Was class cancelled today?" Crabbe asked in a stage whisper, and Draco glanced at the clock noticing that she was a few minutes late.

"Maybe she's too embarrassed to show?" the Gryffindor Patil twin suggested, and a couple of people let out breathy laughs.

One of the many uncomfortable side-effects of Empathy was that Draco could see doom approaching from a mile away. The first thought of Umbridge's he caught was that she was going to skin Hermione Granger alive and string her up in the Great Hall for all to see, as a warning to the rest of them, mudbloods and sympathisers… Apparently a Gryffindor named Romilda Vane had just traded the fact that she'd seen Hermione buy a bunch of Howlers in Hogsmeade for a free pass out of her detention that night.

Draco hadn't done too much reading on how to influence minds—both because it felt invasive, and because he was pretty sure if he did it wrong he'd be caught in a heartbeat—but he focused all of his energy on Umbridge's mind, willing her to calm down, to be lenient, not to do anything horrible to Hermione. By the time she entered the room, she was just as out for blood as she had been three minutes previously, and Draco had broken out into a cold sweat.

He knew there was a trick to it; he wracked his brains as Umbridge gave a sanctimonious little speech about how troublemakers would always have their downfall. There was a formula to it, beginning with the thoughts and feelings that are already present in the target, and methodically twisting them around to the Empath's point of view. Unfortunately that sounded like it required a lot of time and experience, and as Umbridge waddled forward to place her hands on Hermione's desk, he had neither.

"I don't see why you're upset professor," Hermione quipped, having regained herself with astonishing quickness to having been found out. "If you'll take a look at the school bylaws and relevant legal documents, you'll find that there is no ordinance against the use of howlers in such a manner."

The silence was so heavy that a pin-drop would actually have been drown out by it.

Umbridge's mind was nearly exploding with the tortures she'd like to inflict on Hermione Granger, and in a sudden moment of inspiration, Draco focused all of his attention to send one single thought:

'You may not like muggleborns, but Dumbledore bloody _loves_ them—like an old man with a cat. What might he do, and whom might he tell, if you go too far with this one?'

It was enough. Fear wormed its way in, dousing the anger at its roots, replacing it with self-defensive logic. Dumbledore's little reminder this morning that he, not she, was headmaster of this school replayed in her head.

Umbridge assigned Hermione a week's detention for the howlers, and a full day Saturday for talking back—brutal, but bearable. Draco deflated like a balloon with the air leaking out, but did his best not to let it show as the hated professor returned to the front of the classroom and assigned a chapter for silent reading. Potter and Weasley couldn't keep their mouths shut, of course, and wound up with detention that night as well for trying to defend her, but on the whole, the class could have gone so much worse.

The hour drew to a close and the students filed out gratefully, with Draco feeling like he needed to scrub out his brain with lye from its encounter with hers.

How many hours until winter holiday again?


	12. Debt's Repayment

The Slytherin vs Gryffindor Quidditch match got off to an excellent start.

Flint had accepted Crabbe and Goyle as the team's new Beaters, meaning that half of the team, while maybe not the best Quidditch players in the school, could execute maneuvers perfectly in sync from years and years of unintentional practice.

The weather was lovely, and all of Draco's time flying to get away from everyone this term was paying off as his air skills had grown more daring and precise. It felt good, to be able to compete on Harry's level; to feel that the shorter boy was developing a grudging respect for him, take him seriously on the pitch.

Things got complicated when some of the Slytherin students started up a little musical number they'd prepared to 'cheer on' Ron Weasley, Gryffindor's new Keeper. He'd expected it—he'd heard it playing in people's heads for the last couple of days, after all, and it was annoyingly catchy—but what he hadn't anticipated was how intensely he'd feel Weasley's reaction. It was bad enough that the way he focused on the game made those weird animal instincts of his flare up; the tall ginger was also having a full-blown anxiety attack right in the middle of the match.

Breathing through his nose, Draco fumbled in the neck of his robes, clasping his pendant as he tried to center himself and get back to focusing on the game. Through blurred vision, he caught sight of the snitch, but so did Harry, and even as the blond dove he knew he wouldn't reach it in time.

In a last ditch effort to help him, Crabbe sent a bludger hurtling towards the Gryffindor seeker, striking him in the small of the back a second after his fist closed around the snitch. A whistle blew, and the game was over, Draco's head still spinning nauseatingly.

The Slytherin team were bitter as they all landed; they'd been noticing Draco's improved moves, and overall this term they'd really strengthened their teamwork in the sky—Gryffindor's new Keeper was obvious rubbish, and yet somehow they'd still lost due to the dumb luck of the snitch slowing down nearer Potter than Malfoy.

Draco was about to leave and hit the showers—do some breathing exercises and try to go back to blocking everyone—but Montague couldn't handle not having the last word.

"Saved Weasley's neck, haven't you?" he said in Harry's direction. "I've never seen a worse Keeper, but then he was _born in a bin_. Did you like my lyrics Potter?" Harry maturely did not answer, turning away to meet the rest of the team who were all landing, punching fists into the air in triumph. Out of the corner of his eye, Draco noticed Weasley slinking off to the locker room alone, and turned back to his teammates, not wanting to be in close proximity to what the ginger was feeling in that moment.

"We wanted to write another couple of verses," Montague called, frustrated that he wasn't getting Harry's attention. "But we couldn't find rhymes for 'fat' and 'ugly;' we wanted to sing about his mother, see."

"Talk about sour grapes," muttered Johnson, casting him a disgusted look. Internally she was wondering what the angle was; and hoping that none of her several Weasley team members would do anything that might cost them the victory on a technicality.

Right about then, Fred and George realized what he was talking about. Halfway through shaking Harry's hand they stiffened, looking around at the smirking Slytherin.

"Leave it," commanded Johnson at once taking Fred by the arm. "Let him yell. He's just sore he lost, the jumped up little—"

"We couldn't fit in 'useless loser' either, for his father, you know," Montague added, holding up a finger to his chin in a mockery of trying to think up a rhyme. This time, Draco was pretty sure it was his own temper boiling his blood, as his playing-card pendant lay lightly against his clavicle.

"Oh, but… you like the Weasleys, don't you Potter?" the Chaser said, sneering. "Spend holidays there and everything don't you? Can't see how you stand the stink, but I suppose when you've been dragged up by muggles even the Weasleys' hovel smells okay."

Harry grabbed hold of George Weasley; meanwhile it was taking the combined efforts of all three Gryffindor Chasers to stop his twin leaping up on the openly laughing boy. All of Draco's hair stood on end, and he cursed the fact that his wand was securely stored in his locker, sensing the tack his teammate was going to take next.

"Or perhaps," he said, leering as he backed away, "you can remember what your mother's house stank like, Potter, and Weasleys' pigsty reminds you of it. Hell, I'll bet their dad lifted that 'new' broom of his on a raid—how else could they affo—"

Montague was cut off as several things happened at once. Harry released the twin he'd been holding and both of them set upon Montague, cutting him off mid-sentence. Draco surged forward, not sure if he was trying to stop the fight or join it; his skin burned where the pendant touched. Madame Hooch finally noticed the disturbance and ran forward, whistle screaming out "stop!" in time with several onlookers. Someone's elbow made contact with Draco's left eye and he was thrown back, just before an Impediment Jinx did the same to the two Gryffindors.

'We won't need practical experience with jinxes, my lily-white arse,' was all Draco had time to think before Goyle was hauling him to his feet and Madame Hooch was upon them, shouting about their disgraceful behavior.

"I was just trying to stop them, Madame," he tried, knowing that the very last thing he needed right now was to be in more trouble, but he could see that the flying instructor's history with him prevented her from even considering believing him. That and she'd noticed his fist drawn back when he entered the fray. He was a little surprised that he'd reacted so violently, but then again, he did owe Arthur Weasley what little sanity he'd managed to preserve this wretched term. His fingers brushed against the familiar playing-card texture of his necklace as Madame Hooch finally exhausted herself lecturing.

"I've never seen behavior like it; back up to the castle, all three of you, and straight to your head of house's office! Go! Now!"

The three of them ascended the hill and made their way to the castle in stony silence, and since Draco's luck had all been sucked out of him and burnt to ash the day Aunt Dee died, instead of getting to hide down in the dungeons and have Snape make him a salve for his eye, they met both Snape and McGonagall in the corridor. McGonagall insisted on having all of them go to her office, as it was the closest, to deal with the problem.

And Dolores Umbridge arrived about two minutes into said discussion, Educational Decree Number Twenty-Five in hand, to ban them all from Quidditch for life; the other Weasley twin too, 'just to be safe.'

Draco's desire to throw punches increased tenfold, but survival instincts kicked in. Umbridge was radiating contentment, knowing that she'd one-upped the professors who'd made her look bad and gotten carte blanche to do whatever she pleased to previously protected troublemakers. In a last ditch effort, Draco insisted that he was only there to try and pull the Gryffindors off of Montague, but he knew even before he opened his mouth that it was futile. He hadn't thought it possible for her to hate him more, but apparently his dad had tried to strike down the Educational Decree at the Ministry level, knowing on some level that it might mean trouble for his son.

He was starting to regret having asked his father for help at all. Now, in addition to her thinking him a troublemaker, he was collateral damage in her rivalry with his father for control of the school.

-0-

The Slytherin Quidditch team—as well as every sports enthusiast in the house—was furious that he'd gotten banned for (as far as all of them knew) trying to rescue Montague. Most of them didn't blame him; those who had seen his clenched fist thought that he'd been aiming for Weasley. Flint even chewed Montague out for having gone far enough to start a fight and need saving in the first place.

"Look," Draco said when there was a lull in all the frustrated shouting, "she's getting completely out of hand, and towards purebloods like us, no less." The crowd nodded mutinously. "Everyone who's got a family member in high places, write letters, we need the Ministry to see how bad things are and pull her out of here." Dozens of students resolved to do just that, and Draco trudged wearily down the twisting corridor to his dormitory, hoping that the outcome of all this would be Umbridge getting sacked.

He should have put up some mental wards and gone straight to sleep.

That would have been the wise, healthy thing to do.

But he'd had a really rough day, and he'd been so, so good about staying out of _her_ dreams since the one where she'd nearly caught him… she wouldn't think it weird to dream of him two whole times in one term, would she?

'This is your brain on drugs,' he'd seen once in Finnigan's head; a warning from his muggle primary school. He wondered what his own looked like as he slipped into hers.

In her dream, the brunette was lounging against a tree in a small back garden, watching her cat wander around sniffing mushrooms while she ignored the book on her lap in favor of looking up at the sky. The scene was so serene that he couldn't bring himself to intrude, preferring to take a seat next to her, keeping himself completely invisible as he leaned back against the sun-warmed wood.

"Crookshanks, don't eat that!" she exclaimed suddenly, springing to her feet and running to force her cat's mouth open, making him spit out a mouthful of some type of mushrooms. Her panic from that tiny moment started to infect the rest of the dream, darkening the sky and whipping up the wind as she tried to search out every bit of what she was convinced was poison, while Crookshanks squirmed and yowled and tried everything in his power not to let her save him.

'Her subconscious definitely knows exactly how cats behave,' Draco thought in amusement, glancing around at the dream and trying to decide how best to restructure it back to the peace and calm he'd just started to enjoy.

That was when he noticed the Dark Mark hovering over what he assumed was Hermione's house. Instantly, the flavor of the dream changed to 'recurring nightmare.' Hermione's eyes widened as she noticed it as well, and then she caught sight of another, over her neighbors' house, and another, and another…

She tried to run inside, patting herself town futilely to find the wand that she didn't carry while at home, but her feet sank into the sudden sticky mud on the ground and she could barely move forward. Through the ajar door she spied a bloody hand—her father's, she recognized.

Immediately, Draco ran up in front of her, unveiling himself so that she could see him, and unthinking he flung his arms around her, trying to push her back towards the tree—away from whatever carnage her mind had dredged up.

"Don't look, don't look!" he gasped. "It isn't real; you're only dreaming." She cried out wordlessly, both shoving and clawing at him to get him off of her and practically collapsing on him for support.

"Close your eyes," he demanded, pressing a hand to the back of her head to guide her face into his collar. "Close your eyes and count to ten and it'll all be gone."

It was too risky to take her back to Dragenwold—well, like doing this at all wasn't a horrible risk, he reasoned dryly—so he unraveled the dream and reconstructed it into the lawn by the Hogwarts Lake, complete with Crookshanks and the book she'd dropped when he'd eaten the mushroom.

"It's gone," he whispered, "it's all gone, you're safe, see?" She lifted her head, surveying her new surroundings.

"What's going to happen?" she breathed, and her mind scrolled through a pretty exhaustive History-of-Magic list of what Voldemort and his supporters had done to muggles and muggleborns during the first war.

He wanted so, so badly to be able to look her in the eye and say "nothing; nothing is going to happen because I'm going to protect you; I'm going to stop Him, cripple Him, fight Him, and none of that will ever happen again."

But it was difficult to lie in dreams—and doubly so to lie to her.

"I don't know," was his only wretched answer.


	13. Blood's Protection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! Remember all those tags where I warned about Umbridge?

Autumn passed for Draco in a blur of assignments, Empathy practice and weekend trips to the Nest. His grades were still comfortably high—it helped that the alterations to his mind seemed to have made him cleverer—and he'd gotten a little more comfortable with his ability to push someone's desires just slightly to the side to suit himself better. It wasn't much, in the grand scheme of magical abilities, but as far as he could tell it was both unnoticeable and untraceable, which was more than the Imperius curse or other methods could boast. Maybe this was why the Dark Lord was so interested in having an Empath on his side.

However, just when he'd settled into a routine and gotten his sleep habits back to something marginally healthy, the Weasley twins' suspicion that there was something off about him finally got the better of them. As he left the Great Hall after dinner one evening, they cornered him in a stairwell, determined to get answers. For his part, Draco had been too distracted eavesdropping on Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecomb's respective romantic dramas to pay attention to his surroundings, and he'd suddenly found himself between a rock wall and a red-head with no easy line of escape.

"Okay," Fred said, folding his arms across his chest and glaring down at the blond Slytherin with unusual seriousness, "you've been acting weird all term. Different."

"We've been hearing rumors of even further weirdness," George continued, eying him suspiciously; "sacrificing yourself to protect people from Umbridge's wrath doesn't seem like the Malfoy we know and loathe."

"Maybe I just hate her more than I hate everybody else," Draco suggested, rubbing a hand across his face and blinking tiredly.

"You feeding yourself to the wolves doesn't harm her any," Fred reminded him coolly. "You're not a complete idiot: you'd have wormed your way into her good graces by now if that was it."

"And what about at the Quidditch match?" George demanded, "you weren't trying to pull us off of Montague; you were aiming to hit him. It's not your family he was insulting, so what were you playing at?"

"Don't bother to deny it," Fred warned, "I had a front row seat to the whole thing. We don't like you meddling in our affairs for no reason, Malfoy. Start talking."

Draco sighed, leaning back against the cool stone wall and willing it to soothe his budding headache. The twins were angry, confused, and a tiny bit afraid. That combination didn't make for a particularly comfortable emotional climate, and he couldn't find any alternative actions that he could push them into, especially when there were two of them at once.

"Your father," he finally explained, figuring a simplified version of the truth was his best bet, "is… sort of inadvertently the reason I've been able to keep my head on straight all term. My aunt died suddenly over the summer; he… helped, I guess." That wasn't too much information, was it? "I owe him," he finished, "so no, I don't want to hear him insulted."

The twins frowned at each other, their minds both trying to grasp his unexpected answer, and he took the opportunity to stand upright, straighten his robes, and make his escape towards the cool, inviting sanctuary of the Slytherin Common Room. He had the sneaking suspicion that he was going to regret not tying up loose ends later, but at that moment, he was simply too tired to care.

-0-

It was unusual, to say the least, to spot Gryffindors in the dungeons when they weren't there for classes. Needing a moment of peace and quiet after his housemates had returned from dinner, Draco had climbed up a large statue in an alcove, sitting comfortably in its arms as he would the branches of a tree, and had been contentedly surveying the foot traffic below him for some time before Hermione came along. When he saw her, his eyes narrowed at the set of her jaw, the way her hands were pulled into fists; he didn't need his powers to tell him she wasn't at all pleased to be down here.

A momentary dip into her mind showed him the circumstances immediately; Sandra Blair, the Slytherin prefect, had lain in wait for her in the upstairs girls' loo, and caught her red-handed putting up copies of Dumbledore's Army's anti-Umbridge newsletter on the stall doors. Although she'd managed to convince Blair, and later Umbridge, that the whole thing was her project alone, protecting her accomplices, she hadn't had any luck with getting out of trouble herself. Umbridge had announced that her insubordination had gone too far this time, and commanded that she report to the dungeons at 9 o'clock that night for a 'special punishment.'

Casting his mind towards the particular dungeon she was aiming for, Draco physically flinched as he sensed Umbridge and Filch waiting for their victim. With rising horror, he realized that Flich's thoughts were dwelling on what he called 'the old punishments' not out of nostalgia, but because Umbridge had finally given him permission to implement them.

'I knew Umbridge having full disciplinary power was going to be a terrible thing,' he groused internally, slipping down from his perch and sprinting to catch up with the doomed Gryffindor.

He'd also known that falling in love with Hermione Granger was going to be a terrible thing, he reasoned dryly, and yet look at him running headlong into the thick of it.

-0-

"Headmistress," Draco addressed Umbridge as he descended the stairs into the sub-basement-like room. Ordinarily it was used for storage, but for tonight, Filch had moved all the boxes to the side, leaving room for the chains dangling from the ceiling, which he'd already affixed to Hermione's wrists. Umbridge had vanished the back of her shirt, baring her victim's back without violating her own modesty rules.

Three pairs of eyes looked up at him as he made his presence known; one falsely innocent, one narrow and irritable at the interruption, and one panicked and humiliated all at once. Filch held a long, wicked-looking black leather whip, running it through his hands with far too much comfort in his mind, and Draco felt his stomach twist. Things had escalated far too quickly already.

"Mister Malfoy," the High Inquisitor responded, clearly unimpressed with his interruption. "This is a private discipline session."

"I noticed," he murmured, careful to keep his tone level. His mind was spinning. It was clearly meant to be private, so it followed that it would be better for her to keep it hidden. Blackmail, then? No, if she called his bluff she might use it to seize even more power.

"Then you had best be on your way, before you find yourself beside her for obstruction of faculty duties," Umbridge hissed in her sweetest, sickliest voice. This was the sort of situation that made him wish he'd had the sense to get into her good graces this year, he thought in frustration. If he'd forgone his first few infractions, he'd have more power to interfere now.

Power. The board of directors. _She_ didn't know that his father had refused to interfere with her methods.

"Professor," he began again in a low, even voice, moving nonchalantly from the bottom of the stairs to the side of the room, so that he could stand between the staff members and their victim. "You do know that my father is on the Hogwarts Board of Directors, as well as the Ministry's Inquisitorial Bureau, don't you?"

"I am aware of your father's prestige, mister Malfoy," Umbridge sighed, audibly losing patience. "However, at the rate you're going, I'm afraid you will fall severely short of his impressive standard."

"You are aware, then," he continued, unfazed, eyes hardening, "that the Board voted in 1990 _not_ to allow the use of flogging as a school sanctioned punishment, aren't you? That what you're about to do is actually against the school bylaws—policies written, in part, by my father, who is one of the people who voted you into your job, and has the ear of all the others?"

As he spoke, he focused all his mental energy into pressing the thoughts directly into her head. She was crossing a line. She would lose ministry support. This course of action could cost her all the precious power she'd been building up this whole time.

Behind him, he felt Hermione's mind go blank with shock for a long moment as she realized that he really was there to try and protect her.

"Mister Malfoy," Umbridge murmured, her tone frighteningly sugary, "you are not your father—you are simply a child with an important name and a poor attitude. You do not have the right to interfere with your Professor's decisions. Now, leave—this is your final warning."

"For the sake of my family's name—my family's _honor_ ," he seethed, "I actually have a duty to stand up for the decisions my father makes." Not strong enough, he thought exhaustedly. She'd made up her mind and wasn't going to budge this time.

"I highly doubt your father is going to go against the _Minister of Magic's appointment_ over one muggle-born being justly punished," Umbridge tittered dangerously.

Draco's head was spinning and aching, and he could hardly see straight, he was trying so hard to focus. Normally when people talked about a battle of wills, they meant something a little less direct, but that was the only phrase he could think of to describe this as he threw everything he had in him at Umbridge, trying to force her to change her mind. She liked rules, and order, and he tried to beef up that part of her, reminding her that her own actions were directly opposing the school's rules and order.

It just wasn't enough.

As is often the case when people start to think they may not be permitted to do something they really wanted to, Umbridge's mind fought back ferociously, her determination to prove that she could and would do this redoubling. Behind Draco, Hermione's confusion and fear fluttered through her mind, making it hard for her to trace what was going on, although she was certainly trying, wracking her brains to figure out his motivation. Of course, she'd never guess that all he had was a voice in his head screaming "not her!"

Draco swallowed, continuing to argue with Umbridge on the outside, but on the inside considering his options.

The truth was, this scenario was what he'd been hoping for the whole term—Dolores Umbridge flouts the Board of Directors' authority, he witnesses it, he reports it, she gets sacked. But the truth also was that he could no more bear to let her torture Hermione Granger than he could lie down and accept her presence at Hogwarts.

Cringing, he realized that left him only one course of action.

"I won't let you do this," he announced, switching tactics in his mind and focusing on her irritation with him, feeding it into the part of her that wanted to hurt someone, anyone, and engorging it until it eclipsed her wrath against Hermione.

"So if you persist," he continued, tossing his school robe and tie onto a nearby stack of boxes and furiously unbuttoning his shirt, "then you'll have to go through _me_ , and deal with the repercussions of my family finding out you've punished _me,_ a pureblood, in such a manner." Turning on the spot he wrapped his arms securely around Hermione's waist, looking at Umbridge and her stunned flunkie over his now bare shoulder.

"We both know you won't hex me out of the way," he reminded her coolly. "That will break your own rules, after all. So, what now, High Inquisitor? Is your temper worth your job?"

"You're bluffing," Umbridge murmured. The tension between their minds seemed to fill the air with buzzing static.

"I'm not," Draco snapped, noting somewhere in the back of his mind that Hermione seemed to have gone back into shock. That was more than fair, he realized, seeing as he still didn't half believe he was actually doing this.

"You'd never lose face in front of your father by telling him you were protecting a filthy mudblood," Umbridge shot back. That word shook Hermione out of her confused stupor, and her brain went back into overdrive, agreeing with the High Inquisitor's assessment, yet unable to deny that he was still standing between her and her tormentors.

Draco's stomach turned. In the heat of the moment he hadn't come up with a way to deal with that—and Umbridge was right, his father would think him insane for spilling his own blood to protect someone he should think beneath him. But it was much too late now; his latest push of her mind had been completely effective, and all of her rage and sadism was directed towards himself. Resolving to come up with a plausible explanation later, all he said was a tight "we'll see."

Umbridge smiled thinly, and Draco knew with certainty that he'd really tossed himself to the wolves this time, inscribing his name on the very top of her hit list for the foreseeable future. Hopefully the too-clever Weasley twins never learned of this incident; they'd realize that he'd barely answered any of their questions and go right back to interrogating him.

"Mister Malfoy, for obstructing faculty work, I sentence you to five lashes," the Pink-Clad Nightmare announced smoothly. "Miss Granger is to have ten for the trashy gossip rag. You are right in thinking I won't hex you out of the way—I am not a barbarian, after all," she tittered sickeningly, "but if you do not step aside, you'll have ten more for impediment of justice."

Draco just turned his head forward, not wanting to risk any harm to his face, or see the unbridled glee in Filch's eyes as he prepared for the first lash. In front of him, Hermione stiffened; she'd been doing her best to prepare herself mentally for what she was about to endure, but he'd thrown her off. She couldn't think straight, and the fact that she no longer knew for sure if she'd actually be hit frightened her almost more than the certainty of it. She definitely didn't trust him to protect her through the whole ordeal, and he couldn't much blame her, considering the outdated information she had to go on—

The first time Filch hit him, it startled him because he'd been focusing on Hermione's thought process to the exclusion of all else. The harsh, fiery pain sickened him, and he had to clamp his jaw together to keep from crying out. It was different than spell damage, and different from feeling someone else's pain, especially when the cold sensation of wetness took over from the momentary heat, followed by a deep, pulsing ache.

Behind him, he felt his tormentors' elation; Filch reminded of what he considered the "good old days," while Umbridge marveled at her very first time shedding _this much blood_ … Draco fought the urge to vomit.

Even when he had done or said terrible things to people, he'd always had a festering, sick feeling deep in his bones. He hadn't known what to call it back then, but he'd done whatever he could think of (usually more harm to his victims) to get rid of it. Now he could recognize the sensation, and knew that it was guilt, knew that his father had felt it over his work with the Dark Lord (though he could no more recognize it for what it was than Draco could have a year ago) and knew that it would hound almost anyone who took part in sadistic activities like that, tainting all of the doers emotions.

But Umbridge didn't feel one drop of guilt—she was euphoric as she watched Filch paint line after line of crimson on Draco's back, her eyes following the quiver of his shoulders with something like hunger, as he struggled to hold himself there. Shuddering from something other than the physical pain, Draco gently readjusted his hold around Hermione's stomach, resting his forehead on her shoulder in an attempt to think about anything other than Umbridge's unbridled joy.

Choking terror welled up in Hermione's throat when she felt his arms loosen, followed by a rush of shame; she was a Gryffindor, for Merlin's sake, and should be ready—had been ready ten minutes ago—to deal with the consequences of her actions. She was disgusted with herself for how greatful she'd been at the thought that this Slytherin, who hated her, would somehow keep her from being punished. All of this occurred in her mind in the time it took for him to return his grip in a more comfortable position.

"Relax, Granger," he murmured, although what he meant as a soothing tone was a bit marred when his voice caught in response to the sixth lash striking him. "I won't let him hurt you."

"Why?" she breathed back, her confusion redoubling in her fear's wake. "You hate me—why would you do this?"

Why indeed, he thought dryly. He couldn't very well tell her that he'd been reading her mind all term and had suddenly fallen in love with her. She'd think he was crazier than he actually _was_.

"When I say I'll do something, especially where my family's honor is concerned—" he clenched his teeth again; blow seven had been particularly painful, "you can bet your life I'll do it."

By lash 10 he knew that his grip on Hermione's stomach had to be painfully tight again; by lash 20, however, he was clinging to her for dear life, shaking uncontrollably, shocked at the thought that this used to be routine—and might be again, with Umbridge in charge and drunk on blood and pain and power.

Draco's own blood was soaking his waistline and wicking down the back of his trousers, hidden, luckily, by their black color. He was leaning more of his weight on Hermione than he liked, but didn't have the strength to stand. 'Definitely not cut out for dashing heroics,' he thought miserably as lash 23 hit him and his whole body convulsed. 'This sort of thing is Potter's job; how'd I end up here anyway?' He made a concentrated effort to relax his arms, trying his best not to prevent Hermione from taking a deep breath. If he was hurting her, neither of them knew it—him because his own pain had eclipsed every other physical sensation, and her because she'd started a flinching mental mantra at every blow of "'that could have been me, that could have been me.'

When Filch had finished, Draco didn't realize it at first; he thought he'd lost count, perhaps, his body desperately pumping adrenaline as he waited in fear for more pain. After a long, tense moment, the swish of a wand (which made him flinch a bit, to his great humiliation) preceded the metallic clank of Hermione's chains falling open. She dropped her arms, and he released his, standing shakily under his own power. The back of her shirt reappeared, and Draco turned his head to glare back at their tormentors, not yet ready to meet her eyes, in case she saw something in his that he'd rather keep hidden.

"You will both join me for a week's detention," Umbridge announced serenely, "as a lesson in flouting my authority." She had the look of a person who'd just finished a lovely massage or a delicious meal; content and a bit sleepy. Draco's stomach turned as she led Filch—who was running the bloody whip lovingly through his hands again, like a complete psychopath—out of the room and up the stairs. Hermione's whole body was shaking; she'd caught that last glimpse of Filch as well, and was realizing morbidly that with this line crossed it was only a matter of time before her turn came as well.

"Breathe, Granger," Draco instructed, not unkindly, as he sensed her start to feel a bit faint. She turned around fully to look up at him, and for the first time since this evening's nightmare had stared, their eyes met.


	14. Past's Resolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! Still pretty bloody in this chapter.

Hermione's eyes searched Draco's face, looking for something like an explanation and finding none. His Slytherin ability to keep his face inscrutable had not yet gone the way of his ability to mind his own business when it suited him, thank Merlin, but there was still the matter of his heavily bleeding back, for which he already knew he didn't have enough of an explanation to satisfy the curiosity of the cleverest student in his year.

"Why?" she breathed. There was no energy left in her voice, but something was burning behind her eyes, and he knew not to underestimate her. Taking a step back and to the side to retrieve his shed clothing (and have an excuse to break eye-contact) he tried to evade the question.

"I already told you," he started, but she cut him off.

"You really didn't," she responded flatly, and it felt like she was trying to snap at him, trying to be angry, but her confusion and residual fear were dampening the heat she needed to get a real temper going. He surveyes himself critically through her eyes; so much paler than usual, making his limp blond hair look almost honey-colored in comparison. Horrifying crimson trails were dripping forward from over his collarbones and around the sides of his ribcage; it was preventing her from thinking straight, and reminding him just how much pain he was in.

"You need to go to the hospital wing," She finally got out. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the empty, echoing chamber.

"Madam Pomfrey's already been threatened with immediate sacking if she does anything to meddle with Umbridge's discipline methods," he responded, trying haltingly to pull on his shirt, but pausing to hiss and groan, his face twisting involuntarily in pain. "Plus, my father will be much, _much_ angrier if he thinks I might have scars," he continued, some of his old devious glint returning to his eyes. "Speed up the process. Besides, I know what Murtlap essence does; I passed second year potions, thank you."

"Do… do you need help?" Hermione asked nervously as she watched him struggle with his shirt. Hesitantly, she approached him, unsure of what to do in such a ridiculous situation. He looked her in the eye again, wishing he could just throw the damn thing on and escape this incredibly awkward, potentially exposing situation without help, but knowing that he'd never manage it on his own.

"Yeah," he murmured, lowering his arms with another hiss. He watched Hermione swallow, then take the shirt from him and walk around him to where she could slide his arms into the sleeves from below instead of him stretching the material across his back like he'd been trying to do. However, her eyes immediately riveted on the wounds, purpling bruises fading into running red, crossing his back. She couldn't stifle a mix between a gasp and a sob.

Draco cringed. He'd known that letting her see would be a bad idea; she was never going to let this go now. That mind of hers wouldn't let her rest until this fever-dream-made-real started to make sense. Carefully and silently, she eased the shirt over his torn shoulders, and reached for his robe, but he could feel her mind churning away.

"Wonder if I can get her thrown into Azkaban," he murmured, as much to distract Hermione as anything else.

"Wonder what your father will have to say about you protecting me," she responded flatly, seeing the distraction for what it was and refusing to bite. She knew there was something amis and wasn't about to let it go so easily.

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him," Draco assured her, buttoning the robe she'd helped him slip on. "If I start with her beating _me_ , then even if he finds out later that you were involved, he'll still be angry enough to do something."

"I hope you're right," she sighed darkly, walking around to stand in front of him. "Otherwise I'm afraid of how much worse things can get." Draco breathed out a humorless laugh, nodding in rueful agreement.

"Make sure word circulates with the troublemakers in your house," he warned her. "Tell them she's getting worse. Though," he added quickly, realizing how far into the fire he'd just hurled himself, "if you mention my involvement I will deny it."

"Why do it at all?" Hermione demanded. With Umbridge's absence and the fact that she could no longer see his wounds, she was getting her head back under control. "You're not exactly the type to shed your own blood, Malfoy, pride or no pride," she reminded him, eyebrow raised.

He surveyed her through guarded eyes for a long moment. He was tempted, so, so tempted, to tell her that it was because he'd changed, he was better now, he was sorry for ever having been anything else. But if he admitted he'd changed she'd want to know how and why he'd changed, and that didn't lead anywhere good.

Although, a mutinous voice in the back of his head murmured, having a research partner would make this whole debacle _so_ much easier…

"I am, however, the type to get what I want by any means necessary," he reminded her, knowing that he was in no shape to be making potentially life-threatening decisions. Without giving her a chance to respond, he turned on his heel and strode out.

"See you in potions," he called over his shoulder, and didn't slow down until he reached the Slytherin common room, sensing that Hermione had shaken herself a little and headed back up to the relative safety of Gryffindor tower.

-0-

Applying murtlap essence to his own back was significantly more challenging than Draco had anticipated.

On a good day, he could reach one hand over and the other hand under and just touch his own fingers behind himself, but today was by no means a good day, and even at his best he wasn't flexible enough to gently smooth a liquid onto the center of his back without some kind of assistance.

He didn't have enough of the substance to fill the bathtub and just lay down in it—plus the very idea of laying directly on his battered back made him shudder with horror—and pouring down it from the top of his back wasn't getting it on evenly; once it mixed with his still-dripping blood, it would roll right off without soaking into the areas that really needed it.

The bathroom floor was a sticky, bloody mess, his trousers were no better, and he had less than half the murtlap essence with which he'd started. Resigning himself to the fact that this was going to be a difficult recovery, he laid on his stomach, and levitated the medicine as best he could so that it splashed onto his back. Resting his forehead on his folded arms, he sighed, and prayed to any spirit or deity who would listen that no one would need to use this bathroom until he'd at least scabbed over enough to lay in his own bed.

Without Hermione's fear and curiosity to focus on, Draco had nothing to distract him from his own pain, and it was so much worse than he'd realized; burning and throbbing like his skin was still being ripped open. Sweat ran down his face in disgusting rivulets as he lay on the cold tile floor, covered in a sticky, dripping mess of red and sickly yellow, and reminded himself for the thousandth time that evening to _leave the heroics up to people who enjoyed that sort of thing from now on_.

That was when he sensed the presence of another mind; another set of eyes observing him, torn between fear and pity. He lay still, trying to recognize the person and wondering why he could sense their emotions but not quite make out their thoughts, before it clicked. This wasn't a human mind. In fact, to be specific…

"Dobby," he greeted his former house elf softly. Dobby nervously eased his way out of the shadows, child-sized trainers tapping softly against the tile, his little body nearly lost in an oversized maroon jumper with the letter R emblazoned across the front. He'd rolled the sleeves up to half their original length so that his spindly little hands could peek out the bottom. He was trembling slightly, probably remembering every time that he'd been the butt of one of Draco's cruel jokes as a child, and Draco's stomach turned. That was a whole other level of his own cruelty that he'd yet to confront—and to be completely honest, he really didn't want it to be tonight.

"I know you're afraid," he said quietly, figuring that the house elf's body language was enough of a giveaway that he wouldn't look too intuitive. "You don't need to be here; I'll use _scourgify_ when I get up."

Slowly, Dobby approached him, huge eyes searching his face, then scanning his open wounds.

"They are saying that you were hurt protecting Hermione Granger," he finally responded. "They are saying that Umbridge—" his face twisted in revulsion, "was going to have her beaten, but that you stopped her."

Draco groaned.

"Does every Hogwarts house elf know about it already?" he grumbled, realizing that keeping his exact involvement a secret was going to be much harder than he thought—especially if his father's former servant was as loyal to Harry Potter as he had sensed the few times he'd been in range of him this term.

"They is not spreading stories, sir," Dobby exclaimed quickly, suddenly afraid for his coworkers' safety. Draco didn't even have the energy to flinch at the newest stab of fear. "The ones that cleaned up the dungeon know, and Dobby overheard them." Of course, Draco reasoned, that just meant that the house elves didn't all know _yet_ , which wasn't really reassuring.

"Look," he sighed, painfully reaching up a hand to rub tiredly across his eyes, "like I said, you don't need to be here. I'll clean up after myself—"

"You need help," Dobby cut him off, quietly but resolutely.

"I have it sorted," Draco insisted, trying not to lose patience; he didn't need one more wound on Dobby's already mangled heart on his conscience, but it was hard to think about how he'd feel later when all he could feel now was pain and exhaustion and the house elf's bone-deep (and fully justified) fear. "I can see you shaking from across the room. Just leave—there's no reason you should force yourself to be here."

"Were you afraid?" the house elf inquired, voice calmer than his quivering knees. Draco blinked, confused for a moment as he fought to sort out Dobby's difficult-to-catch thoughts. "Of the lash," he eventually clarified, right when Draco had worked out what he meant.

"You were afraid of pain, and humiliation, and of what you know she will do to you next time and the time after that," he continued, edging forward. Draco didn't say anything—his former servant was right.

"But you chose to do it anyway," he continued, kneeling at Draco's side, his too-long fingers glowing with magic, which when he applied it to the torn and bruised skin of his lower back produced the most intense sensation of cooling relief that he thought he'd ever felt in his life. "It was the right thing to do, even though it scared you. It was…" Draco felt Dobby struggle with himself, trying to find a way to say this that wouldn't offend the wizard that he still didn't trust not to turn around and hurt him.

"Very unlike myself," the blond finished for him in a tired monotone. "I know." Grey eyes met huge green ones as the pleasant healing sensation spread all the way up to his shoulders, and then faded, leaving a dull ache behind to replace the horrific burning he'd felt before.

"Being brave," the elf explained as he stood up, carefully using more magic to clean the blood and murtlap essence off the bottom hem of his jumper, and then off the tiled floor, "means setting fear aside to do what's right. If you aren't afraid, then there is no need for courage, is there?" Draco sat up, reaching behind him to feel the scabbed-over ridges on his back that had replaced his open wounds.

"This is all Dobby can do with his magic," the elf explained as he turned to leave, and he sounded a bit apologetic. "They will still scar."

Before Draco could get out a word of thanks—and his whole body was nearly fainting with gratitude; he'd forgotten house elves could do that—the elf had scampered back out the door without another word. Draco breathed out a nearly silent laugh. His little speech on courage only got him so far, it seemed.

But by all of Merlin's magic, it had been enough.


	15. Truth's Revelation

_Hermione's feet were rooted to the spot, like they'd been stuck to the dungeon floor with a permanent sticking charm, her arms suspended above her head with creaking chains wrapped around them, the cold metal seeming to tighten of its own accord. Her throat ached, too choked with fear to scream—no one was coming to save her this time._

_In the manner of dreams, she couldn't turn her head, but somehow knew every expression that crossed Umbridge's face anyway. She couldn't make eye contact with her tormentors, but neither could she be spared knowing how much they enjoyed her pain. Squeezing her eyes shut, she gripped the chains tightly, trying to wrench her feet up off the floor and free herself…_

_Then suddenly the chains loosened, and she was swinging off of a creaking metal bar. Opening her eyes, she was greeted by the sight of snow-covered Hogsmeade, everything shimmering in the winter sunlight. She let go of the Three Broomsticks sign, which she'd inexplicably decided to swing off of, and ran a few steps to catch up with Ron and Harry, who had been calling to her, saying they were going to Honeydukes._

_Catching up with her friends, she linked arms with both of them, feeling strangely like something dreadful had just happened, but unable to remember any details. However, just as they were about to enter the sweet shop, she had the intense feeling that she was missing something important—like someone else was there, someone she really ought to notice. Pivoting suddenly, she turned her head this way and that, scanning the passersby in the streets, unsure for whom or what she was looking._

_With a frustrated sigh, she turned and followed her friends through the door, unable to shake the impression that she was being watched._

-0-

Draco's eyes opened and he passed a hand over them with a sigh. A week had passed since that horrible incident, and every night since, Hermione had had the same nightmare about it.

And every night since, like a hopeless bloody sap, he'd slipped in and changed it.

This wasn't even the first time he'd felt her start to notice him; three times so far her subconscious had rebelled, trying to tell her that there was an intruder in her thoughts. He knew he was pushing his luck with secrecy by constantly dipping into her head, but he couldn't bring himself to stay out of it and let her suffer, particularly after what he'd gone through to ensure that she didn't have to suffer the actual event in the first place.

His back was healing up well, thanks to Dobby's quick intervention and his own (admittedly late) discovery of a loofah on a stick to apply potions and herbs to himself more easily. He had of course taken photographs before cleaning himself up, and sent them to his father, who was absolutely furious. He had apparently shown them to the Educational Board who, between that and some of the reports from their own children, were preparing for a formal inquiry with the ministry.

The scars were going to be hideous, but all things considered, it was worth it.

With only mild groaning, he managed to haul himself out of bed and into the shower.

Classes went smoothly, for the most part. He kept his head down in Defense, scored some points in potions, and successfully dyed his hair a luxurious black in charms before returning it to its natural blond color. He had a bit of a close call in Care of magical Creatures; Hagrid had returned and, not having been present for Draco's turbulent and transforming term, noticed immediately that there was something off about him—both his behavior, and the way he winced when he had to bend forward. He avoided the half-giant as best he could until the lesson was over, then hastily retreated into the castle.

Just as he thought he'd escaped, however, he sensed the approach of the Weasley twins; one following him through the corridor while the other had circled around to the front so that they could catch him in a pincer movement. He barely had time to wonder irritably what they could possibly want now when one of their minds provided the image of a book cover on theoretical mentalism.

It was one of the books that had vaguely alluded to Empathy.

Draco's mouth went dry.

They'd pieced together his strange behavior more than he'd given them credit for; it helped, apparently, that Professor Snape had admitted at an Order of the Phoenix meeting that the Dark Lord was looking for the Empath, and that they knew the identity of the previous holder of said power.

'Useless bloody spy,' Draco groused, speeding up in hopes that he could make it to a side corridor before his exits were blocked. The twin behind him sped up as well. 'Can't even keep a secret from some teenagers with homemade listening devices…' Draega Black's death and the twins' father's friendship with her had brought their deductions full circle, and the book had simply confirmed what they already suspected.

Draco's heart pounded erratically, panic constricting his chest like a steel band.

They know!

They know!

They know!

His mind couldn't move on from that one horrible thought, and he stumbled over nothing as the twin ahead of him got close enough to make eye contact.

Swallowing shakily, he made the split second decision to hurl himself into an empty classroom, not stopping until he reached the opposite wall. He scanned the grounds out the window, knowing that he could easily jump from this height, but also knowing that he needed to do damage control before it was too late.

In a perfect world, only one person would have figured it out at a time, and a quick obliviate would solve his problem. However, this was no perfect world, and he had no delusions that he could erase both of their memories without at least one of them blocking the spell. Fighting a full duel with both NEWT students wasn't something he really wanted to do, which unfortunately left diplomacy as his last resort.

(In hindsight, of course, he should have acted like he hadn't seen them so that he could play dumb, but panic was one hell of a perception filter.)

'Is it true?' Fred demanded without preamble as both twins entered the room. 'Did you actually inherit some kind of all-powerful mind-reading abilities from Draega Black?' Draco spun on his heel, trying for annoyed confusion.

"I don't have a clue what you're going on about, you bloody stalkers… who… haven't spoken aloud, have you," he realized belatedly.

Fred shook his head, thinking 'nope, not a word,' quite clearly. Draco's shoulders slumped as the brothers exchanged glances.

"That explains some of the strange behavior," George commented aloud. "Not all of it, but some."

"Dolores Umbridge's mind is the most disturbing I've ever encountered," Draco sighed, cutting to the chase with what the two ginger-haired wizards were thinking. "I'm a pretty good liar, but I could no more pretend to be in league with her than I could bear to transfigure myself into a shoe for the rest of the year. I hate her and I want her gone—have either of you got a problem with that?"

They looked at each other again, minds whirring in parallel consideration of the pros and cons of a temporary alliance with this new version of Draco Malfoy. On the one hand, having someone around who didn't like them and could potentially mess with their minds wasn't a pleasant thought. But on the other, Umbridge herself wasn't pleasant in any way. Two sets of identical eyes narrowed.

"No problem at all," said Fred finally, reaching out a hand to shake.

Draco smirked as he took it, then George's. If there was one thing he knew about the Weasley twins, it was that a little thing like common sense would never prevent them from engaging in a little mayhem…

-0-

_Unsurprisingly, by the time Draco was able to slip into Hermione's turbulent dreams, he found her to be having another nightmare about that night in the dungeons. As before, she hung limply in the chains, fear and pain filling her mind, and tonight, he felt bold._

_Gently, not wanting to create too much counter-tension and wake her, he came up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder, pushing her slightly forward. As she swung back, the scene changed and gravity moved, and she was sitting on a tree-swing, hands gripping onto the ropes for stability while she swung back towards the grass. She dragged her heels on the rough ground below her, stopping the swing's progress, and glanced around, confused by the sudden change._

_"All right, Granger?" Draco asked with enough dry sarcasm that she'd still recognize it was him speaking; she whipped round to stare at him, her dream self still shaking with fear, eyes wide and vulnerable in a way she never let anyone see in the outside world._

_"Why are you here?" she demanded, but her voice was small, without any power or bite behind it. He shrugged casually, stepping forward and grabbing the swing's rope just above her hand._

_"I dunno," he responded, "thought I'd show you around my family home." He nodded towards Draegonwold, rising up on the horizon to their left._

_"You want to show me all the Malfoy family heirlooms?" Hermione responded dryly. Draco shook his head._

_"Nah, those are all back at my parents place in England. This house belongs to my great aunt and godmother, Draega Black." Hermione stared between him and the house for a moment, then—deciding, no doubt, to just accept the weirdness as gospel in the natural way of dreams—she stood up and followed him across the lawn._

_"We're in New Zealand right now," Draco narrated as he pressed his palm to the huge outer gate and it swung open invitingly at his touch. He felt a brief pang, thinking about the actual house all magically sealed and impenetrable, but he pushed it aside as he led her across the grounds, intending to get her mind as far away from that night in the dungeon as he possibly could._

_"Your pureblood great aunt and godmother has a television?" Hermione noticed, pointing at the box at one end of the living room._

_"How else was she meant to watch Doctor Who?" Draco responded with a shrug and a grin._

_"You know about Doctor Who? Really?" Hermione laughed, almost smiling._

_"Hey, I am still British," Draco reminded her with a smirk._

_"She's also got an extensive library," he added when the pause threatened to become awkward. He didn't even have to point her in the right direction; she immediately turned and walked the way he'd glanced when he'd said it. He smiled fondly, knowing she'd never see it, then followed her._

_"So," she said after she'd curled up in one of Aunt Dee's armchairs with a copy of Hogwarts, A History in her lap, "can I ask you something?" She was visibly more relaxed, and Draco felt proud of himself for remembering little details about the library—the particular old book smell, the way dust motes floated lazily through the slanted sunlight in the evening, the way the armchairs sort of enveloped the sitter._

_"Can't promise I'll answer," he responded with a lazy grin from where he was sprawled sideways across another chair, like the arm-rests were carrying him bridal style, his shoulders supported by the winged back._

_"Why would you help me?" she murmured thoughtfully._

_That was the million galleon question, wasn't it? Even if he was going to spill his guts about his secret inherited magic, that would take more than the length of a dream, and with her being stressed already, he didn't want to throw in a complicated explanation of his Empathy and its trials and challenges; that might push her back into a nightmare state._

_"Because recently I had to reevaluate why I wouldn't," he responded finally, his voice to low that if this hadn't been a dream, she might not have heard him._

_"You've been acting different all term," she mused, and with a fit of nerves, he realized that her mind was more awake than he'd given her credit for. "Everyone's noticed; my friends, your friends…"_

_"People ought to mind their own business," Draco muttered nervously, hoping that she'd drop the subject, but already knowing it was futile._

_"And another thing," she murmured, closing the book and leaning forward over its cover, "why did that work? Why would that old hag suddenly decide to let you take my punishment for me, just because you told her to…?"_

_"I have that effect on people," he breathed, red flags blossoming across his vision. He shouldn't have shown himself, he was an idiot, they were inside her mind now, where she was at her most powerful, and—_

_"Is this real?" she demanded flatly._

_And in that moment, he didn't have to say a word._

_Because she'd already realized that it was._


	16. Allies' Truce

'This is a trap.'

'This IS a trap.'

'Obviously, a trap.'

'TRAP!'

Draco's instincts were screaming at him as he lounged deceptively still on a desk at the far back of the empty classroom Hermione's note, delivered by owl directly to his dorm window, had specified. He glanced at his watch. Eight minutes left until she was supposed to meet him.

Or, of course, she could just tell McGonnigal that he'd been illegally using Legilimency to prank her nightmares or however she thought he'd done it, get him reported to Umbridge, who would report him to the Ministry, who were full of leaks to Voldemort. He swallowed. Seven minutes.

Thing was, Hermione Granger might have been a Gryffindor, but he got the impression that the Sorting Hat had given precedence to her courage and willingness to act, rather than really considering the methods she would choose. She was every bit as ruthless as a Slytherin; if he hadn't known that before, he would have picked up on it when he realized what spell she'd used on the Dumbledore's Army roster. He wouldn't want to be the person who eventually cracked under pressure—did that hex even have a countercurse?

Five minutes. He twisted around and cracked his back, making a mental note to buy a chair like this for the Nest so that he wouldn't have to be perpetually stiff over break. Should he steal one from Hogwarts, he wondered, as a really early Seventh Year Prank?

Four minutes, but he could sense her approach now; mind spinning as she tried to apply half a dozen different theories of Occlumency simultaneously. He would have laughed if the situation had been less serious. The trouble with Occlumency was that if the witch or wizard was new at it, they had to start with hours of meditation, relax themselves into oblivion before starting the technique. Once it was in place, the performer could keep it there without too much effort as long as they reacted calmly to surprises and what-have-you, but mental barriers took time and focus to erect.

Hermione, for all her cleverness, hadn't given herself nearly enough time between her trip to the library to learn the techniques and the situation in which she'd planned to implement them.

At the three minute mark, she pushed the door open, letting it fall shut behind her and muttering locking and muffling charms before turning to face him.

"You came alone, then," she observed, while mentally calculating the chances that he'd seen anything incriminating in her mind worth using for blackmail.

"Mutually assured destruction," he greeted her, aware vaguely that he'd meant to say something a bit more hello-ish, but not really able to regret getting straight to the point.

"Sorry?" she responded, frowning and pursing her lips.

"You're thinking I'm going to blackmail you about Dumbledore's Army," he explained, standing and approaching her, but stopping the moment she started to feel crowded. "I'm thinking that you're going to go to an authority figure about me reading your mind. When both parties have equivalent dirt on each other, that's not blackmail anymore; it's mutually assured destruction."

She scoffed, dropping her bag onto a desk so she could fold her arms.

"'Equivalent'?" She echoed. "Hardly. I'd be expelled. Professor Snape would get you off with a warning." Draco took a step back, pulling out a chair and turning it so he could sit on it backwards, draping his arms across the back.

"The ability I'm using isn't legilimency," he explained calmly. What was that expression; 'putting your head into the lion's mouth?' Yeah, he was feeling that now, but it was the only way to get her to trust him—and certainly the only way to impress upon her how serious of a secret this was. "It's called Empathy. It's hereditary, powerful, and on the Dark Lord's short list of 'Things to Collect to Rule the World.'" He felt her stiffen, saw her eyes widen a fraction. "In other words, at least you'll survive your secret being made known. I have no such guarantee." He waited politely for her to speak aloud this time, rather than replying to her thoughts directly.

"So you acknowledge that He's back," she finally said, leaning against a desk, not quite sitting, but her body language saying that she was going to remain for the duration of this conversation.

"He's been living in my house since last summer," Draco responded dryly. "Yes I acknowledge that He's back."

"And He's what, trying to recruit _you_?" He heard as well as felt plainly her disbelief that he could possibly be that important to the dark wizard.

"Trying to _find_ me," he corrected quietly. "There's only one Empath at a time. He killed the last one for refusing to join the Death Eaters." The pain of that was duller than he'd expected, perhaps because he was becoming used to it. "Now He's searching for the next carrier."

"AKA you," Hermione finished for him. "So? Why are you hiding? Shouldn't you be pleased?" Her anger and disgust was tempered by fear. The last thing she could deal with right now was her schoolyard nemesis being even more powerful, and his hatred of her becoming an even more serious danger. He swallowed. A very few months ago, she would have been right, and that thought scared him more than Voldemort for a long moment.

"No," he managed to whisper, then swallowed again. Clearing his throat, he reached a hand into the collar of his robes, grasping for his necklace.

"It's called 'empathy' for a reason, I take it?" Hermione observed, and he snapped his eyes up to her, reading the way her logical mind was assessing the situation. She very nearly had it figured out just from the name and the way he'd been behaving all term.

"Yeah," he responded, nodding. "And most of what you're thinking is pretty spot on."

"Stop doing that!" She hissed irritably.

"Believe me, I wish I could," he sighed, pressing his forehead into his forearm and squeezing his eyes shut. "If you've any idea how to turn this off, I'm all ears. Though judging by your Occlumency attempts during this conversation, I'm guessing that's a resounding no."

A dozen different angry replies flooded through the Gryffindor girl's head, but in an impressive show of focus, all she said was, "Why tell me then, if you're in so much danger?"

"You knew enough to incriminate me twenty minutes ago," Draco replied quietly, raising his head and resting his chin on his arms to look her in the eye. "Now you have a good reason not to."

"'Mutually assured destruction'?" she quoted, irritated that he'd think she'd need a threat like that to not get someone killed. What did he take her for, anyway?

"Nah," he shook his head. "I know you're not the type to get me killed. But just in case you turn out to be the type to leverage what you know to get me to do things, please understand that I'm really quite opposed to all of that." He'd expected her to stay angry, but she diffused like steam out of a suddenly opened tea kettle. She'd realized that he was defensive of his freedom, not just from her, but from Voldemort.

Honestly, having a conversation with someone this clever was _so relaxing_.

"I won't tell anyone," she said, hooking her foot around a chair leg to pull it closer so she could finally sit.

"I believe you," Draco responded immediately.

"Not that you've got much choice, since no one can lie to you," she quipped. He gave a little self-deprecating smile and nodded assent.

"How long has this been going on?" she asked, right hand twitching like she wanted to reach for a quill and start taking notes. She was calculating in her head, looking back and trying to figure out when he'd started acting strangely.

"Since this past summer," he responded. "Dark Lord came back and almost immediately went after my godmother—the Empath before me. The ability passes on to a successor when the Empath dies. He'd hoped it would be my aunt Bellatrix, as she's the oldest surviving relative, but as it turn out, it's me. Actually," he added, wrinkling his nose, "I wonder how he knows it isn't her; she's been in Azkaban almost my whole life, and I think if He Who Must Not Be Named walked into the most secure prison in the Northern Hemisphere, someone would notice."

"Maybe the Dementors would have noticed," Hermione mused, leaning back as she considered that. "They have trouble sensing and tracking muted emotions like—" she cut off, forgetting apparently that he'd see the rest of the sentence in her mind.

"Animal emotions?" he finished for her. "Sirius Black turns into a big black dog, does he? Been wondering how that worked, since obviously no one on my end has been trying to welcome Sirius Black into Club Death Eater. Good point though; the contents of my head would light them up like a Christmas tree I'll bet…" he continued, breathing through her stab of fear and subsequent attempts to rationalize it away.

"Oy, Granger," he diverted, waiting until she met his eyes. "My life in your hands, remember? I'm not about to write home with 'I stole Sirius Black's secret out of Hermione Granger's head.' For quite a number of reasons, actually."

"So," she sighed, forcing them back on track, "Voldemort knows it's not Bellatrix Lestrange; does he suspect you?" Draco shook his head.

"Doubt it. Really, all the old Pureblood families are related, so He's got a list of possibilities longer than the the Americas measured end to end—Hey!" he snapped, catching the word 'Inbred' flitting through Hermione's mind. "That's really rude!"

"So is 'mudblood,'" she deadpanned. Draco grit his teeth, but couldn't deny it.

"Fair enough," he allowed. "So, avoiding Dementors is a higher priority than on a usual day…" he considered, but Hermione's mind was off again, analysing his every word and action throughout the term, realizing that by necessity his beliefs about the superiority/inferiority of different wizards had to be at very least on shaky ground…

"Yeah," he confirmed, and she knew immediately that he was replying to her thoughts again. "Those were pretty well shattered a while ago."

"How was that, then?" she demanded coolly.

"Hurt like hell," he assured her immediately. "Still does. Hope that pleases you," he added, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Just because he knew what a prat he'd been didn't mean he liked saying it out loud.

"Wonder what would have happened to Bellatrix Lestrange, if she'd gotten it," Hermione murmured, frowning. She didn't want to think about how much that change would hurt him—which was fair, he supposed. He didn't really want to be aware of how much he'd hurt everyone around him throughout his life, but unlike him, she had a choice in the matter.

"I can't imagine," Draco responded, glad that this, at least, he didn't have to feel.

"So, hang on," Hermione changed the subject. "You're always in people's heads—even their dreams, as we've established." Draco nodded, letting her say the rest out loud. "When do you sleep, then? How do you sleep—you should be completely…"

"Exhausted?" He offered when she trailed off, remembering the youngest Weasley boy's analysis of him. "Yeah, Weasley's got it in one. I am very, very tired, Granger."

"Was your… godmother, constantly tired? How did she do it?" Draco shrugged helplessly.

"I've no idea," he admitted sadly. "She didn't talk about it much, and to be honest I thought everyone put too much hype on whatever it was she was supposed to do. Didn't know how wrong I was until the night she died. Now I'll never get the chance to ask her," he murmured.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Hermione murmured back, and she was.

"Anyhow," he diverted quickly before his throat could close any further, "she had an extensive library, but her estate locked itself down and no one's been able to enter since she died. If she's got any materials related to controlling Empathy, they're quite out of reach until the Cursebreakers get through the warding."

"I'm guessing you've tried the Hogwarts library?" Hermione checked. He nodded. "The Restricted Section?" she added. He shook his head.

"Haven't had the chance yet, but I'm not really optimistic," he explained. "I checked the Swiss National Wizarding Library and _Cadocimento_ , in Brazil without much luck."

"You've been to _Cadocimento_?" Hermione hissed, jealousy flaring up like a wild thing. He laughed.

"Want me to take you?" he suggested. "The Trace cuts off at the border for over 14, so we wouldn't get caught." Hermione surveyed him incredulously. "Seriously," he assured her, "pick a weekend. Having you around might bring me some sort of Library Luck." Hermione scoffed, but internally she was starting to be tempted. Draco schooled his features, reminding himself that if there was an appropriate time to ask her out on a date—debatable at best—this most certainly was not it. She was about to kindly offer her help to solve a fascinating magical conundrum, not bat her eyelashes and—

It took him embarrassingly long to realize that HE was not the one over-rationalizing that this was absolutely NOT flirting of any kind.

"I'm in and out of the Restricted Section every term, no one really pays attention to me going in there anymore," she shrugged, staying cool on the outside as she diverted the incriminating thoughts as quickly as she could manage, "I'll take a look, see if there's anything you can use."

"Thank you," he responded as sincerely as he could. Frankly this whole thing had gone better than he'd expected—considering her right hook in third year and the fact that her mind was easily her favorite part of herself. He'd expected to have to argue—beg, if necessary—for her help.

Unfortunately, his heartfelt gratitude triggered another memory in her—one he'd been studiously avoiding in their conversation so far.

"Are you ever going to tell me why?" she asked, knowing that he could read the rest of the question in her mind. He squirmed internally, unsure if he should say he was practicing his mind control and messed up, or that he needed to be the one who was hurt so that his father would act, or to just blurt out that he loved her and couldn't bear to see her harmed.

He swallowed, surreptitiously drying his palms on his pants.

"It was… sort of the only thing _to_ do, then," he muttered finally. Hermione's eyes narrowed, but the continuing mystery intrigued her, so she closed her mouth and stood up.

"Meet me back here this time on Thursday," she instructed. "I'll search the restricted section between now and then and see what I turn up."

And just like that, they were partners in crime.


	17. Hearts' Bonds

"Ooh, what about this one?" Draco rolled from his back to his side to read over Hermione's shoulder, catching the book he'd been wandlessly levitating for himself before it could fall in a heap on her back. She was on her stomach on the classroom floor, ankles crossed above her, fingers gently tracing down a paragraph.

Draco's eyes scanned the words, but he picked the gist of it out of her head—it was a technique for converting different types of magical energy, not unlike the one they'd discovered last week which was allowing him to perform small feats of magic while his wand lay abandoned in his school bag.

Hermione's preliminary research in the Restricted Section had yielded remarkably little—as Draco had suspected in the beginning—but her trip to McGonagall's office under Harry's invisibility cloak had turned up slightly more. He now knew three things he hadn't before she started helping him.

  1. Hermione Granger was _so_ much more of a badass than he'd first suspected
  2. Empathy was, at its core, a natural method for a wizard to saturate his environment with his own power and then sense, manipulate or alter that environment.
  3. It followed from point number two that his power wasn't restricted to _only_ what he could do with the human mind, and he could "flex his muscles" so to speak by performing all kinds of high-level magic that followed the same theory.



Granted, Hermione had only written the last two points in the magically-connected journals they were using to communicate when they couldn't meet up in person, but Draco really thought that number one deserved its spot at the top, and had changed the numbers accordingly.

"I've been really comfortable with breaking rules lately," she'd explained flippantly, as if he didn't already know about the secret army, anti-establishment newsletter, setting Professor Snape on fire in their first year and everything _else_ she'd been doing the entire time she was at Hogwarts.

"So, theoretically then, I could take a spell someone else has already cast, say, a levitation charm," Draco mused, "and convert it into a bat bogey hex and toss it back at them. Without levitating."

"Theoretically," Hermione agreed, turning the page, eyes almost blurring with the speed she was reading. "Although I suppose some types would convert more easily than others."

"They've got these huge orbs at Cadocimento," Draco explained, "that you fire off a spell into and they break it down for you so you can see the structure."

"I wonder if it's the same sort of technique," Hermione exclaimed, sitting up and crossing her legs. "Maybe an Empath invented them—any idea who it was?"

"I dunno, but I can find out this weekend," Draco shrugged, sitting up as well and setting his book in the neat pile of library materials he'd brought back from Brazil based on Hermione's wish list. "You could come with me this weekend," he added, as he had nearly every week since they'd started this little partnership. "Visit the library, stay away from Umbridge for a whole 48 hours, meet my neighbors' dragon that thinks I'm his part-time mum…"

"Get caught, wind up in the dungeons again…" Hermione finished for him as she usually did. It wasn't that she didn't like the idea, but she was 100% certain that if she was caught sneaking off the grounds, Umbridge would take the opportunity to immediately expel her. Draco's sudden introversion was normal by this point in the year—no one seeing him on an evening or weekend wasn't cause for concern. But Hermione was convinced that the one time she went with him, it would be disastrous.

"Christmas holiday, I'll visit you, I promise," she finished, glancing at the pocket-watch she'd enchanted to time how long Draco had kept up the levitation spell. "Forty minutes," she read, looking back at him. "And you don't feel at all tired?" Draco shook his head.

"Well that confirms Crino's Theory," she mused, referencing the 12th Century scholar who had postulated that if a wizard's energy were naturally flowing out into his environment, using that energy after it had reached saturation wouldn't cause him to expend any more.

"Hey," Draco laughed, "after the war ends and everything settles down, you can write the definitive work on the subject."

'Let's wait to discuss that until you're not literally in hiding from your own family,' she thought pointedly at him, along with a reminder of the time. They were late again, and would need to use disillusionment charms to get back to their houses.

'Bring Potter's invisibility cloak next time,' Draco projected back, proud that he could now do it while they were both awake, without giving her a headache.

'If I borrow it, he'll look at his map to see what I'm doing—and find out who I'm with,' she countered, setting down the one book and grabbing another. 'Unless you've changed your mind on the whole "absolutely no one must know, particularly Harry Potter" thing.'

"Not for a minute," he grumbled aloud. It had taken him a while to place the uncanny feeling he sometimes got out of Harry, but finally he'd realized what it was—some sort of connection to the Dark Lord. He was willing to bet that if Harry knew, Voldemort knew, and if Voldemort knew…

"Have you heard from home lately?" she asked, and if he hadn't been the world's foremost authority on knowing better, he would've thought she was reading his mind this time.

"Reading between the lines, He's still in occupation," he sighed. Of all the people to have to hide something the Dark Lord wanted, it had to be someone whose most-loved person happened to be living in the very same building. "I might try to get my mum alone during the holidays—meet her in Prague for tea or something, see if she'd be receptive to possibly disappearing for a while."

"And your dad?" Hermione pressed. Draco rubbed a hand across his face, then through his hair.

"Has no reason to defect until I give him one," he mumbled. "With him, I'll have to reveal myself, and he'll either run with me or turn me in." She didn't ask which one was more likely, and he was grateful for that.

He didn't know.

And he really didn't like not knowing.

"How much do your parents know about all of this?" he asked, shaking himself a little.

"Just that if they see anything strange or people in masks, run the opposite direction," Hermione commented, but her thoughts took a decidedly darker turn; following her recurring nightmares of them being slaughtered by Death Eaters, she'd started to come up with a plan to protect them in the long term.

"Brazil might not be the best destination," Draco responded to her inner musings. "They tend to stay out of international magical politics, but there are immense magical resources there, so if and when the war escalates, they'll be pulled in eventually. Your second choice sounds like your best bet."

"Australia it is, then," she murmured, opening another book and trying not to think too hard about the whole thing. It was so much more fun to help Draco learn how to do graduate-level magic than it was to contemplate Obliviating her parents…

"Hermione," Draco started, unsure of what he wanted to say to comfort her, but suddenly, like an alarm went off in his head after being snoozed several times, he sensed the approach of other people. "Bollocks," he cursed dropping an image into her mind of Zabini and Montague headed down the corridor, directly towards them. The classroom door opened as Draco berated himself for his inattention. Had he learned nothing from the Weasley twins' ability to catch him unawares?

"Well, well, well," Zabini commented, eyes taking in the scene—Draco's long outer robe spread out on the floor with them sitting on it like a picnic blanket, Hermione's hair pulled to the side in a loose braid, the space (or lack thereof) between them… "Isn't this an interesting surprise. Out past bedtime, and having some lovely… private time?"

Hermione shot back, something about the other two boys being out past curfew as well, but Draco had already plucked the explanation from Montague's mind. He vaguely remembered hearing about the Inquisitorial Squad forming—Crabbe and Goyle had tried to sign up, in an admirable but ultimately doomed attempt to raise their little clique's status and get him a little ways out of Umbridge's crosshairs. The bad news was, they'd both been unceremoniously rejected.

The good news right now was that Montague still believed that Draco had lost his spot on the Quidditch team trying to pull the Gryffindor boys off of him in that fight, and was already scheming on how to lessen how much trouble they were in.

"...Should drag you in front of her right now," Zabini was musing, considering the way that Draco's loss of status had boosted him into a position of leadership. This was going to be a tight thing, Draco cringed inwardly. It didn't help that some of Montague's ideas involved throwing Hermione under the bus to get Draco off.

"Listen gents," Draco started, rising fluidly and walking over to them, lowering his voice to give the impression of cutting Hermione out of the conversation, but projecting his words into her head so she could play along. "You both know I'm floundering this year—I can't be focusing on anything but keeping my grades up, and I know you've had to step into my shoes, Zabini. Please don't ruin it for me by busting me for getting study help from her, of all people. I'd owe you both big time if you just swept this under the rug, kept it between ourselves."

"We can't be taking points from our own house," Montague reminded the taller boy.

"And God forbid Granger tell her loudmouth friends why she got in trouble if you punish her," Draco added with a convincing shudder. Unfortunately, Zabini wasn't confident enough in his newly obtained position to pass on the chance to put Draco down.

"I think that the two of you should get detention for your little illegal study group," he drawled, "and if you don't want her telling the whole school about your mental challenges, _you_ should think up a way to shut her up. Now, get back to your houses. Montague's right—I don't want to take points from Slytherin, and it would be a shame if you had to get more detentions." He turned to leave, followed by Montague, who shot an apologetic look over his shoulder (but thought some really foul things about Hermione as he did it, making Draco barely able to restrain himself from punching him). Once they were gone, Draco deflated slumping forward.

"You tried," Hermione sighed, packing up the books in her bag.

"I failed, again," he grumbled sitting back down on his robe and laying back to stare up at the ceiling. "The one thing I'm meant to be the best at is the one thing I can never seem to do."

"You aren't going to get overnight," she reminded him. "All the truly great wizards got to where they are through years of study and practice. Give yourself time."

"I wish that we had time," he sighed darkly. "Unfortunately, there's clear and present danger all around us." His hands were shaking slightly, thinking of how much worse it would have gone if he hadn't at least managed to uproot from the other boys' heads the idea that they were having a romantic tryst. If word of that got out, and made it back to Voldemort, that would be enough to cast suspicion on him _and_ put Hermione right in the line of fire once he was found out. Both of those risks were completely unacceptable, and he felt his mouth going dry.

"Sorry," he added, as it computed that regardless of what might happen in the future, what was definitely going to happen tomorrow night would be quite painful for her.

"It's not your fault," she reminded him immediately, standing up so that he could roll forwards and pick up his robe, shaking it off and draping it over his shoulders. His back tingled, thinking about what might lay in store for either or both of them if they made even the smallest misstep here at school.

"It is," he responded, "I should have been more aware of my surroundings and sensed them coming."

"Well, do that next time then," she replied, not wanting to engage with what she was mentally calling a guilt-fest. Apparently his behavior was reminding her of Harry, and not in a good way.

"Don't compare me to Potter," he grumbled half-heartedly.

Stepping forward, she pressed her lips to his cheek for a brief moment.

"Draco, I promise, the way I feel about you is nothing like the way I feel about Harry Potter.

"See you in class," she added, casting a disillusionment charm and walking out the door while Draco stood stunned in the middle of the room for a long moment.

'Okay,' he thought, dazed, his fingers reflexively touching his cheek, 'I guess this evening wasn't a total and complete failure after all.'


	18. Daylight's Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hi all! Well, I’ve been gone a while, and a few things have happened.   
> A Tale of Gold and Roses is now available on Amazon in ebook and paperback forms - look it up with title and author name, and it’s the one with a blue rose on the cover. (There is a slight issue with the paperback where the text is closer to the spine than it should be - it’s readable but a little aesthetically off - know before you buy!) If you have Kindle Unlimited, it’s available there as well.   
> I’m one of the new faculty advisors for my workplace’s robotics team, which is an entire second job now that I know the exact hours I’ll be working and the amount of administrative paperwork I’m responsible for.  
> Also, I’m making plans for grad school, so that’s fun. The question of course is if I can do that while working both jobs, because the coaching stipend would put a lot of money towards tuition. We’ll see.  
> Meanwhile, behold the next chapter!

_ “You should try making pot roast,” Hermione mused, glancing over the notebook Draco used to record his cooking attempts. _

_ Draco hummed to show he was listening, carding his fingers slowly through her hair as she rested against his shoulder. They were curled up together on one of Aunt Dee’s sofas, Hermione’s memory of her week’s research materializing as handwritten notes on a roll of parchment she’d rested on Draco’s lap when they’d sat down. _

_ “Another thing for me to burn especially for Bumble the Baby Dragon,” he responded with a self-deprecating snicker, and Hermione prodded him playfully in the ribs. _

_ It had been a month since Blaise and Montague had discovered them “studying together” in the empty classroom. Between the rawness of both of their hands after their detentions and the possibility that if Hermione were to be tailed by the Inquisitorial Squad the security of the DA might be compromised, they’d both agreed that they needed to step up the secrecy of their meetings.  _

_ Draco, of course, had his own compelling reason not to let anyone know he was now dating Hermione Granger, but she didn’t see the threat of Voldemort killing her as being nearly as much of a consideration as her boyfriend did. _

“I’m a muggleborn,” she’d reminded him, “and involved in the resistance. If He or His followers have the opportunity, they’ve already got plenty of things to kill me over. I just have to avoid giving them the opportunity.”

“Still,” Draco had muttered, pulling her in close and resting his cheek on top of her head, “Let’s not give them a reason to declare open season, shall we?”

_ Since then, they’d only met in person twice (not counting classes or the Great Hall, where at her suggestion he’d tried to slip back into something similar to his old patterns towards her to throw Zabini off the scent). Instead, they met in dreams, first twice a week, then quickly escalating to every night as they enjoyed one another’s company. Hermione had, at Draco’s insistence, learned proper occlumency; while Draco was fairly confident that an experienced Legilimens or Empath could override it, she could at least put up the barrier as a “keep out” sign if she wished. So far she hadn’t felt the need to use that skill, but practiced it diligently in the mornings. _

_ “Ron still thinks there’s something up with you,” she murmured, bringing him back to their shared dream, and then showing him a memory of that evening in the Gryffindor common room, where Ron had muttered that Malfoy might be possessed, or maybe a Deatheater waa posing as him using Polyjuice potion. _

_ “I’ll get one of the twins to casually mention that they recruited me for anti-Umbridge work. Let him think they’re influencing me. Hopefully it’s enough to throw off his animal instincts.” He knew without looking, in the manner of dreams, that Hermione had rolled her eyes at the term. _

_ “Would you rather I called it his seer abilities?” he added as he always did when she objected to the way he described Ron’s uncanny powers of perception.  _

_ “No,” she grumbled, still not ready to accept that particular reality. “Think Fred and George will side with you over him?” she added with a frown, pulling away a little to look up at him. _

_ “I’ve impressed upon them what will happen if the Dark Lord gets ahold of me,” he shrugged. “For all of their joking around, they love their little brother and wouldn’t want him involved.” It had occurred to him a few days ago that if Voldemort searched through his mind and found out who had helped him, all of their names would go straight onto a hit list. _

_ “You’re brooding again,” Hermione accused after he’d been silent for too long, snuggling back into him reassuringly.  _

_ “Worrying about my friends and family in the face of the Dark Lord’s rise is a new sensation,” he murmured darkly. “I’m still getting used to it.” His eyes scanned down the parchment roll as Hermione set his cooking notes aside. She’d written down some pretty powerful offensive spells on here - spells he’d have to try at the Nest where he had enough space not to harm anyone by accident. He wondered, in the far back corner of his mind that supplied him with dangerous and terrible ideas, if he’d ever be powerful enough to actually go up against the Dark Lord.  _

_ ‘Trying and failing would be better than running scared your whole life,’ a voice that sounded eerily like Harry Potter’s muttered in his ear. _

_ ‘Failure gets the people I love killed,’ he reminded the voice sternly. ‘First Hermione, then mum.’ _

_ “We should try breakdowns again,” he said aloud, running his fingers over the text of a particular theory. “I think these alchemical techniques would make it go smoother.” _

_ “I’ll meet you in the Forbidden Forest on Sunday morning?” Hermione checked, her face going a tiny bit pink. Sure, practicing breakdowns meant they’d spend a bunch of time with her hexing him over and over, which was not at all romantic. But they so rarely got to see each other in person, in private, that she couldn’t help but be excited. _

_ “It’s a date,” he agreed, kissing the top of her head, and then frowning as he heard a faint noise intrude on the dreamscape. “That’ll be your alarm clock,” he warned as the sound grew louder, and with a regretful look, Hermione vanished, waking up to silence the alarm and begin her day. _

Draco opened his eyes and rolled onto his back, stretching luxuriously on the double bed he’d placed in his basement bedroom at the Nest. He’d spelled the walls a rich jewel tone green, and put in decorative blue stones around the fireplace so that the light reflected artfully around the room when it was lit.

True to his word when he’d bought the place, he’d come to the Nest nearly every weekend - popping back sometimes to make appearances at Hogwarts as needed, but spending the majority of his time fixing up his bungalow and researching at the library. Granted, the time he could spend doing the latter was limited, since his body was still on UK time, and he did nominally need to sleep, but he managed.

Wrapping himself in his most comfortable bathrobe, he stepped into his slippers and padded up the stairs to the main level to find some breakfast. Despite the early hour and complete darkness outside, a throaty warble and a scratching sound allerted him to Bumble’s attempts to get through the kitchen window.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” he demanded groggily as he fumbled open the latch and let the energetic ball of scales into the room.

The kitchen was starting to look a whole lot more like a potions lab these days, with different sized cubbies along various sections of wall sporting little bottled and bags and tubs of ingredients. He had a couple of different types of cauldrons nested in the cabinets, along with pots and pans and various cutlery, and bundles of herbs hanging from the ceiling. He’d tried to set it up so that he could feed himself and do his potions homework at the same time (an organizational detail that would never fly with his peer group, but that he knew was typical among less wealthy families).

“One of these days, Beatriz is going to decide she’s tired of your running off,” he commented pointedly, frying a pair of eggs and some bacon in one pan, while he overcooked more bacon in another for his uninvited guest. Bumble, of course, couldn’t understand a word Draco was saying, and wouldn’t have cared if he could, the little scamp. Despite the fact that he was always very well-fed at home, he apparently liked the adventure of going to Draco’s to steal his food instead - although Draco supposed he could hardly count it as stealing when he pulled out a separate pan and made it for him.

“I’m spoiling you,” he grumbled, sliding the finished meals onto two plates and wolfing his down with almost as much gusto as the dragon. Projecting into Hermione’s dreams from halfway around the world took a lot out of him, although it was getting easier each time he did it.

Leaning back in his chair, he reached out a hand and beckoned his school bag towards him from where he’d dropped it by the kitchen door last night. As if he’d waved his wand and done a proper summoning charm, it slid forward to bump into the leg of his chair, where it then flipped open so he could rummage around and locate his homework. He shivered once as all the hairs on his body stood on end - an uncomfortable but brief side-effect of using wandless magic to impact the physical world - and then retrieved his transfiguration essay to finish it up. He wanted to make sure that he didn’t have anything left to take up his precious time with Hermione when he went back tomorrow morning.

“Should really make an effort to eat dinner with Blaise,” he muttered to himself, remembering the way his former friend’s confidence had been wavering over the last couple of days. “Give him some support, remind him that he needs me.” He supposed he could go back in time for a Hogwarts dinner tonight, and avoid having to cut his day with Hermione short tomorrow. His sleep wouldn’t be as restful, and the stew he’d made himself for dinners that weekend would go to waste, but it would make his schedule easier.

“Wonder if she’d agree to a picnic in the Forbidden Forest,” he thought suddenly as he rolled his finished essay back up and turned to stuff it back in his bag. “That’d kill two thestrals with one - Bumble!” he exclaimed as his closed hand encountered scales and he looked down to see the baby dragon rooting around in his bag, apparently trying to rearrange the books and papers into a comfortable nest. Seemingly offended at being disturbed, Bumble squeaked indignantly and coughed out a tiny flame in Draco’s direction. Before he even had a chance to consider it, the flame had burnt itself out on a shield charm that he wasn’t aware of casting until it was already up.

“Well, that will be convenient I suppose,” Draco sighed, reaching both hands in to lift the small reptile up and glare at it. Bumble sneezed out a smoke ring, unrepentant.

-0-

Sunday morning dawned crisp and foggy at Hogwarts, and the sudden change from Brazil’s tepid weather and the fine layer of frost on his dormitory window had Draco shivering before he even stepped outside. He’d popped in for dinner the previous night, having moderate success getting back onto Blaise’s good side, but then immediately returned to the Nest to try and get some quality rest before what he knew would be a taxing magical workout today.

Wrapped in his cloak and carrying a picnic basket, he silenced his footsteps as he made his way out of the castle and into the forest, hiking for some twenty minutes until he reached the specific clearing Hermione had shown drawn a map of in their Echo Books the previous night. She’d said that according to Hagrid it was far enough away from the home territories of the various creatures who called the forest home that they’d likely not be interrupted. 

Sitting down on a fallen tree, he pulled an empty jar out of his pocket and twirled his wand at it, duplicating it until he had seven identical jars. The familiar wood felt oddly static-laden under his fingertips, as it had been doing every time he transitioned back to traditional magic after doing wandless for a while. He wondered absently whether that was something in his head, or if his wand actually objected to him now.

Shaking himself a little, he snapped his fingers, conjuring up blue flames in each of the jars, then with a wave of his hand, sent them to even points around the clearing. The spell both warmed the space enough that he could remove his cloak, and made the whole area thoroughly unnoticeable to any living creature who might happen to pass by. Only someone who knew where they wanted to go could enter now. According to Hermione, this spell was one she intended to use for family camping trips as soon as she came of age and could get away with it. It was mosquito repellant and environmental controls all wrapped up in one - in the summer it would have a cooling effect, and would dry the air so that even in high humidity clothing and other items would not remain damp.

He sensed when she entered the forest. He didn’t even have to try at this point, Hogwarts was so full of his magic from the term so far. Slowly, he inhaled, drawing his focus inward as he followed her approach, until he could barely sense that awakening hum of the castle in the distance. The still-slumbering herd of centaurs and just-dosing nest of acromantulas in the forest behind him and to his left quieted and then nearly vanished altogether, until as Hermione stepped into sight, all he could sense was her. 

“Morning,” she greeted him with a warm smile, pushing back her hood and sliding off her cloak as the air around her warmed. 

No matter how many times he saw her in his dreams, being near her in person was always a completely different experience - like the difference between smelling his favorite tea and drinking it. There were details of her physical presence that neither of their minds would replicate, like the exact wildness of her hair or the way she walked when she wasn’t weighed down by a bag of books.

“Morning,” he echoed, stepping forward, hesitantly closing the distance between them. The closeness they had developed in their shared dreams always felt just a little bit like a dream upon waking, so it always stunned him a little that he could really be with her in the real world. Soft warmth bloomed across Hermione’s cheeks as her mind raced to keep up with the same things he was experiencing - a combination of wanting to reach out and touch him to assure herself that he was really here, and an apprehension at the thought of doing so here in the physical world.

Life made so much more sense in dreams.

“I brought breakfast,” she announced as the long moment threatened to become painfully awkward, taking her own step forward to close the remaining distance between them and pulling a box of muffins out of her bag, followed by a thermos of tea, two mugs, and four massive books that should not possibly have fit in her school bag.

“Undetectable Extension Charm for OWLs, or just for me?” he asked with a grin, taking the box from her and popping the lid off, levitating out a muffin before offering them back to her.

“Both,” she responded with a smirk as they both sat down to eat, the knees of their crossed legs just a hairs breadth away from touching. “This year is all about multitasking, and to do that, I need a bigger bag. If my book pile in my dormitory gets any bigger, the other girls are going to stage a protest about the avalanche hazard.

“Sounds like you need a bigger room, then,” Draco laughed, the low-stakes topic easing away some of the tension. “You’re quite free to store books at the Nest,” he added, wiggling his eyebrows for effect even though he knew she would immediately shut him down.

“Christmas holiday,” she insisted. “I’m not getting caught leaving school grounds under this regime.”

As was the manner of things this year, the topic of Umbridge carried them through for several more minutes - Draco and the twins were working on an enchantment to remove the painted cats from all of her possessions, and Hermione was looking into the Umbridge family history, searching for leverage. So far, neither of them had a definitive plan of how to remove her from Hogwarts entirely.

“Shall we get started, then?” Draco finally suggested when they’d both started feeling a bit hopeless. Having his girlfriend shoot stunning spells at him for hours on end wasn’t exactly the most fun way to start a Sunday morning, but the last time he’d managed to redirect three in a row, and this time he’d added some alchemical theory to his technique. As he began alternately dodging and catching the bursts of red light from her wand, he wondered what it would take to block and channel something stronger - something a little more unforgivable.

The loss of focus for that one second cost him his consciousness, and he awoke to Hermione offering her hand and reminding him to keep his head in the game. He stared at it a moment before reaching up and grasping her wrist firmly, accepting the help and trying to ignore the desperate overstimulation of finally touching her, skin-to-skin, after so long of meeting only in dreams.

It had been harder on both of them than either had expected - attempting to return to the cruel status quo while in the company of their friends and peers. Just because she knew that the verbal barbs that he shot her way were entirely feigned didn’t make them not hurt, and truth be told she was disappointed in herself for realizing that to be the case. 

On an intellectual level, she knew that the very best way to keep their relationship both secret and safe was to look, on the outside, as they always had. And frankly, if Draco had a prayer of getting back into his housemates’ good graces, he needed to stop isolating and start joining in with the crowd again. She’d thought it was better her than someone else playing the victim, because now she knew the real him - knew that he had fundamentally changed and that it pained him to continue with habits he’d worked so hard to break. But deep down, she hated being constantly reminded of how he used to be, and hated even more how much she knew it hurt him to return to that state, however feigned (and sometimes even rehearsed) their fights might be.

Draco was still holding her hand, his thumb running gently over her wrist, and she realized she’d been lost in silent contemplation far longer than she’d planned.

“Christmas holiday,” he promised her quietly, bringing her hand up and kissing her knuckles oh, so gently. Christmas holiday she’d come and visit him, and they’d be together out in public with no fear of anyone or anything.

“Christmas holiday,” she echoed after not-too-long-of-a-pause-this-time as they both let go, the warm afterimage of his hand and his lips seared into her skin.

It seemed years away.

-0-

The week dragged on like normal - classes and meals, one lovely evening ‘training the new Slytherin seeker’ because Umbridge had taken the night off to go to the ministry for a meeting - until finally it was Friday again. Draco’s leg jiggled uncontrollably as he sat through History of Magic, waiting for the exact second he could duck into the gents and activate his portkey. Beatriz and Pablo were having a party for their anniversary, and he finally thought he had enough of a handle both on being with people and magically speaking Portugese that he could really enjoy himself.

Just as the clock signalled only 5 minutes of class left, his bag seemed to hum gently against his ankle from where he’d tossed it on the floor. Digging around inside, he pulled out the perfectly innocent notebook that Hermione had spelled to echo with hers, and opened it next to his textbook, the picture of a conscientious student.

[Brazil?] Read his girlfriend’s familiar handwriting in the middle of the page. Draco blinked, wondering if he was imagining things. The neat, bold handwriting stared back up at him, unaltered. He wasn’t.

[I thought you’d never ask!] he wrote back. [Meet behind Greenhouse 6]

If he’d thought the class dragged before Hermione had agreed to spend the weekend with him, it was nothing compared to how slowly it was going now. He cast his mind over the castle, searching for her, until he found a memory of her in Lavender Brown’s head. Apparently they’d gotten into a massive fight, culminating in Hermione levitating her stack of library books into her bed with her and magically closing and sealing the curtains. 

Knowing Lavender’s dramatic tendencies, she would warn all of her dorm-mates that Hermione was in a mood and wouldn’t want to be disturbed - meaning that if she was gone the whole weekend, the chances of anyone noticing were incredibly slim. Although Draco felt compassion for Hermione, who didn’t always get along with the girls she had to share living space with for 7 years of their adolescence, he had to admit that their dynamic was an asset for things like this.

[Bring something to wear to a party,] he advised, heart pounding in a combination of trepidation and excitement, just as the bell finally rang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well, that’s all for now folks!  
> UPDATE 3/20/20: So… I didn’t like the original feel of this chapter. And neither did a lot of readers I think, but Beth’s brain hasn’t been in a very good way lately (the last, what, couple of years? But specifically the Year of Our Lord 2020 it’s been particularly bad and I’ve had NO free time either) so no matter how many times I read through it I couldn’t figure out how to fix it.  
> A couple of shots of scotch and a few beers later, I have now “fixed” it. Or rather my current, mildly intoxicated self thinks that it’s an improvement. We’ll see when y’all sober people send me your comments.

**Author's Note:**

> Well folks, this is where the story went on hiatus on fanfiction.net. From here on out we're all waiting on me to update. Next semester (beginning tomorrow) my schedule is as follows: Monday-Thursday, 7am-8pm, Friday 7am-4pm, Saturday 8am-4pm, plus an hour commute each way, and beginning grad school (online). So one of two things is going to happen.
> 
> Either, having absolutely no downtime, I will nave no time to write and the story will return to hiatus.
> 
> Or, having absolutely no downtime, my brain will do that thing it did in college when I had projects due and work to get to and I'll be inspired to write every single day.
> 
> We'll find out in the next couple of weeks which one it'll be! Hope to see you all again soon!


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